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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 2, 2016 10:26:27 GMT
Well, it's going to America that has made me a lot more relaxed about the idea of multiculturalism. Americans are intensely patriotic, wave the flag, consider themselves fully American etc. and yet they are all very devoted to the cultures from which they come. It's not a melting pot but I don't believe in the melting pot anyway. It seems to work well enough to me-- the Africa-American tension is, I think, a legacy of a very particular history.
Some points I would make:
1) I don't think different cultures have to be equally weighted.
2) I don't think official recognition of minority cultures has to be part of this, though I don't see why it shouldn't be.
3) I personally would like to see the ideal of Gaelic Ireland remain the dominant culture in Ireland.
4) I see no problem with prohibiting aspects of a particular culture, like the niqab (though I myself am opposed to banning it on grounds of religious freedom-- if the niqab, why not circumcision, why not many other practices which are given special privilege on religious grounds?)
5) Has there ever been a consensus about what a particular culture means, anyway? Even at the height of Gaelic, Catholic Ireland there were intense debates about Church and State, what exactly Irish culture was, etc.
I do want to put my thoughts on this subject into context. I'm trying to anticipate the future. It seems to me that greater mobility of people, the internet etc. means that we are inevitably going to have a more fluid, globalised world. I don't want the idea of distinctive cultures to be either discarded on the one hand or to become a source of conflict, militancy and ethnic strife on the other hand. I think this is best achieved by concentrating on traditions rather than territories.
I like to think of the example of the Jews. They have been at the forefront of cosmopolitanism and urbanism and multiculturalism all through their history and they have retained their traditions. Admittedly, the Jews (or at least a majority thereof) came to the conclusion that they needed a State, but the fact is that their culture did survive and arguably thrive.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 5, 2016 15:29:06 GMT
This discussion seems to have fizzled. Maybe I can revive it by returning to something very interesting that Irishconfederate said:
"Precluding some unlikely turn of events which would re-launch the Gaelic language movement throughout Ireland (it is strong now only in the North), language is not available to us as a distinguishing factor. Our English language, on the other hand, is a powerful linking vehicle, waiting to be loaded by us with new discourse and vision. The world, for as long as we can foresee, will continue to rank us, with Poland, Italy and so on, among the 'Catholic nations'; and that is a reasonably accurate view of us. But I doubt that the public assent and commitment to being a Catholic (or Christian) nation, which obtained in Ireland among ordinary people and public figures 30 years ago, and which has since disintegrated, could be restored in the near future. Consequently, I believe that the only option available to us is the constitutional one: I mean the creation of a new set of civic and economic institutions which, with its attendant socio-political philosophy and ethical values, would bond the nation and distinguish it from Britain and America."
Does anyone disagree with the idea that an Irish identity needs to be founded and promoted which isn't based on Catholicism or the Irish language..........but is one which is distinguished in the world by a "constitutional" identity......like the identity of Switzerland and the USA?
Would be good to hear thoughts on it.........
One of the reasons I don't see this as the path forward is because it seems a very 'thin' sort of identity. How much can different constitutions or administrative systems or even underlying value systems differ? It seems to me that the world is actually moving closer together in this regard (outside the Islamic world), with liberal democracy allied to some form of capitalism being the norm. And we are in such an integrated world it's hard to see how we can avoid going in the same direction. Hopefully we can hold out in terms of the new human rights paradigm that encompasses abortion, euthanasia and sexual fluidity-- and we can hope this current in 'human rights' will change in the wider world. Differentiating ourselves through culture and traditions seems much more plausible to me than attempting to do so through having a different sort of constitution.
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Post by assisi on Jun 5, 2016 16:07:43 GMT
This discussion seems to have fizzled. Maybe I can revive it by returning to something very interesting that Irishconfederate said:
"Precluding some unlikely turn of events which would re-launch the Gaelic language movement throughout Ireland (it is strong now only in the North), language is not available to us as a distinguishing factor. Our English language, on the other hand, is a powerful linking vehicle, waiting to be loaded by us with new discourse and vision. The world, for as long as we can foresee, will continue to rank us, with Poland, Italy and so on, among the 'Catholic nations'; and that is a reasonably accurate view of us. But I doubt that the public assent and commitment to being a Catholic (or Christian) nation, which obtained in Ireland among ordinary people and public figures 30 years ago, and which has since disintegrated, could be restored in the near future. Consequently, I believe that the only option available to us is the constitutional one: I mean the creation of a new set of civic and economic institutions which, with its attendant socio-political philosophy and ethical values, would bond the nation and distinguish it from Britain and America."
Does anyone disagree with the idea that an Irish identity needs to be founded and promoted which isn't based on Catholicism or the Irish language..........but is one which is distinguished in the world by a "constitutional" identity......like the identity of Switzerland and the USA?
Would be good to hear thoughts on it.........One of the reasons I don't see this as the path forward is because it seems a very 'thin' sort of identity. How much can different constitutions or administrative systems or even underlying value systems differ? It seems to me that the world is actually moving closer together in this regard (outside the Islamic world), with liberal democracy allied to some form of capitalism being the norm. And we are in such an integrated world it's hard to see how we can avoid going in the same direction. Hopefully we can hold out in terms of the new human rights paradigm that encompasses abortion, euthanasia and sexual fluidity-- and we can hope this current in 'human rights' will change in the wider world. Differentiating ourselves through culture and traditions seems much more plausible to me than attempting to do so through having a different sort of constitution. I wonder, Irish Confederate, has Switzerland got much of an identity. I would be hard pressed to define a sturdy picture of Swiss identity. Surely our identity depends mostly on the past, whether it be an individual (what were your habits and peculiarities as a kid that family and friends still recall) or as a nation. We can have a 'vision' that is encapsulated in a constitution, but if we airbrush our past then there is little to distinguish us from any other nation in a world that is more globally oriented and undifferentiated. Our Christianity and our Gaelic are key elements of who we are, how we got to be where we are. I say Christianity because perhaps the only time when Ireland changed the world dramatically was during the pre-reformation missions of the likes of Columcille and Columbanus, much of that emanating from Ulster and later Scotland, something Irish Protestants could buy into. Similarly our Gaelic language is shared by the Scots. Again with a little persuasion, the current Irish Protestants could embrace this since many of them identify themselves as Ulster Scots. What is the alternative? A constitution full of vapid phrases such as respect, tolerance etc based on a society with no foundations, no past, no vigour......eventually Ireland would find itself being sponsored by McDonalds, Starbucks or Danske Bank. Our only defining character would be those football fans dressed up as leprechauns with a pint in their hand.  I think also that we could consider looking at a new national anthem and a new national flag! |
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 5, 2016 16:23:08 GMT
I don't like either our flag or our national anthem, but I would be against changing either, for the reason I mentioned in a previous post; you can't create traditions if you keep starting again.
Our flag is just another knock-off of the French tricolour, and redolent of the radicalism that animated the French Revolution and all the movements that took inspiration from it. Aesthetically it's not particularly attractive. But it's the flag that became identified with the national cause, and it was the flag of the newly independent State, so I am in favour of keeping it. Maybe we could complement it with other flags.
Similarly I find Amhrán na bhFiann to be deeply uninspiring, both lyrically and musically. I don't understand why every anthem has to be about war. But I am in favour of keeping it for the same reason.
But I agree heartily with your general sentiments, Assissi.
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Post by irishconfederate on Jun 7, 2016 21:50:52 GMT
For the Freedom of all Nations and their Sub-Communities
'The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has been enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the fire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the statue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater so rightly erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that it is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? Is it we who have created not only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too humble fools - why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have done something more to them. You have created your enemies?....Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth, the destiny, the humble purpose of creating a new world? ..........So has the soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realise what it is to live in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so they have theirs; and are you mad as to contend against them?' G.K Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill
'.....that we may carve an Attica out of Ireland.' George Russell, The National Being
'As I said above that a nation is "a distinctive community of communities, existing in a world of similar distinct communities". And the fact is that it is only in a world of nations (rather than power blocs and masses) that any nation, including the Irish one, can exist. Also I have stressed the absolute necessity, if we are to build a nation once again, of winning a new and good image of man or of human life in general. But obviously, if we do this , we shall not be able to keep it a secret, and it will found more new nations than our own. So, in effect, a necessary and inevitable by-product of our work of nation building in Ireland will be the building of a new world of nations. But that dimension of our venture lies beyond the scope of this lecture.' Desmond Fennell, A New Irish Nationalism
I wanted to put those quotes up because I hold the vision of Ireland and the world which they point to... dear.
Desmond Fennell wrote on modern nationalism, in a book dedicated 'To the men and women who have risked life, liberty or bodily integrity for Ireland in this century':
'I do this, successfully I hope, by showing that nationalism [modern nationalism] has not only failed to overcome provinciality either in Ireland or anywhere else, but is intrinsically incapable of doing this and acts, rather, by its very nature, to provincialise nations and the world. On the one hand, I wish to show that nationalism [modern nationalism] is not entirely a negative quantity; that the representational method I am advocating is present within nationalism as a subconconscious mode of action; and consequently, that in pursuing it, we would not be breaking utterly with our nationalist past. We would be consciously and critically using a method which our nationalist predecessors used instinctively, subconsciously, confusedly, and consequently to no avail. I feel I owe it to our tradition of nationalist struggle against provinciality to make it clear that the kind of struggle I am advocating is, in this sense, a selective and critical continuation of its predecessor.'
I would just like to write, I'd only intended to post the quotes, that Adam Wayne's speech in The Napoleon of Notting Hill where he is urging his people -who have now an independent Notting Hill- to not become imperialist, but to work for the freedom of other nations and communities...........is maybe a representation of the nationalism that Fennell saw as ' a selective and critical continuation of its predecessor'. Its predecessor being modern nationalism.
The Notting Hillers ending up by using a different nationalism to Wayne, beginning their imperialist action.
Desmond Fennell in quite a fascinating book devoted 350 pages to showing how modern nationalism is implicitly imperialist, and that Adam Wayne's nationalism would be the correct, prudent, good, true way forward. Desmond Fennell never used The Napoleon of Notting Hill as an example.
I am for the nationalism envisaged by Chesterton and Fennell and one too which would be 'a selective and critical continuation of its predecessor'.
Modern nationalism never consciously represented the world and the nation as the communal and multi-communal realities that they really are.
Fennell wrote, on this... call it... Catholic nationalism:
'The way to make Irish life value-presenting is to struggle to represent the world and the Irish nation, not as the provincializing forces of imperialism and provincialism represent them in their false-world picture, but as the communal and multicommunal realities which they really are.'
I would say that was what Chesterton had Adam Wayne doing as he struggled to make life value-presenting.
maolsheachlann I apologise for attributing to you a post that was Young Ireland's several posts ago. A Federal Ireland putting in structural form the fact that we are a community of communities....can indeed be an identity.......we can embellish it with a history that justifies it, it is Gaelic and Catholic. The sky is our limit with how much we poeticise it, make it beautiful, as more of us do it and 'erect the Golden Banner' (George Russell) then others will find the vision worth attributing to, liberating, and worth fighting for.
'.....that we may carve an Attica out of Ireland.'
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 8, 2016 9:28:02 GMT
No worries, irishconfederate.
I suppose I'm just trying to understand why yourself and Desmond Fennell (and, presumably, others) feel so strongly about the priority of the local over the national. I could read 'Beyond Nationalism'-- I started reading it a long time ago-- but I have a lot else to read at the moment, and I have read a couple of Fennell's other books this very year. I feel he overthinks things.
I guess the difference between our views is that, while we both aspire towards national AND local distinctiveness, I think the first is the ground of the second, while you think the second is the ground of the first. We are almost into the realm of metaphysics here. Is a region a part of a nation the way a finger is a part of the body? Or is a region a part of a nation the way a car is part of a cavalcade? These are fascinating questions.
I actually invited Fennell to speak to our Chesterton society and he told me that he had never read a word of Chesterton, as far as he can remember-- his email was very gracious, I should add.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 8, 2016 11:31:25 GMT
irishconfederate, would you be able to summarise Fennell's argument as to how nationalism is inherently imperialistic? I see that it can be, but not that it must be.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 9, 2016 22:28:40 GMT
I'm not actually sure that Fennell sees nationalism being imperialistic as altogether a bad thing; he criticised the EU precisely for not having an "imperial project" based on a sense of shared identity.
Nationalism is very often accompanied by centralisation within the nation, to build national cohesion by asserting a shared identity at the expense of the regions. A recent example would be the way in which the SNP government in Holyrood has abolished the regional police forces in favour of a single national police force, and is generally seen as centralising. (This is partly -but only partly - because in recent years the SNP has defined itself as more leftist, partly to appeal to traditional Labour voters in the central belt, whereas it used to be momre regionalist when its main support was in the small-town and rural North-East and in the Western Isles.)
My main disagreement with Fennell is that he is not interested in understanding why some people think differently from him. I would sum it up in another Napoleon of Notting Hill quotation. The exiled president of Nicaragua is lectured by some of the characters on the great new future to be provided in a world entirely given over by big states, and when he is asked if he has any questions he says he has only one -whether he would be allowed to say that he would rather be a toad in a ditch. I distrust the sort of Utopia which assumes everything will be made perfect if only a nostrum is applied, partly because I have or had a certain attraction to that sort of thinking, and when I was a teenager it brought me closer to becoming a fascist than is comfortable for me to recall.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 9, 2016 22:43:34 GMT
I have just come from a talk by John Waters where Desmond Fennell was sitting two chairs away from me. He kept complaining about not being able to hear. Fr. Brian McKevitt was sitting between us. I spoke to Fr. Brian a little bit, but not to Mr. Fennell.
That's a fair point about centralisation. I suppose it's like the way the G.A.A. rules were codifed when the association was launched. Or the way a national standard was created for the Irish language. I imagine some such centralisation is very often necessary to stop traditions from simply dying. It's the matter of a critical mass again. Where centralisation of this sort can be avoided, I think it should be.
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Post by irishconfederate on Jun 27, 2016 19:47:41 GMT
thank you for your posts
maolsheachlann to answer this post: 'I guess the difference between our views is that, while we both aspire towards national AND local distinctiveness, I think the first is the ground of the second, while you think the second is the ground of the first. We are almost into the realm of metaphysics here. Is a region a part of a nation the way a finger is a part of the body? Or is a region a part of a nation the way a car is part of a cavalcade? These are fascinating questions.'
I think identity of the nation is the first. So I begin with the national too and agree with you that national distinctiveness is first. Trying to re-present a distinct and binding identity of this world people called the Irish. Then comes the point of moving from the ground of identity towards recognising how those nationals live -in communities and families and as persons- and from that then to reorganising structures to represent actually how those nationals live. So I agree with you that national distinctiveness is primary.
Hence trying to establish a distinct, binding identity as Neutral, Federal and Democratic. I'm hoping that could be an identity that could distinguish us in the world and which would bind us Catholics and non-Catholics and Gaelic-lovers and Gaelic-not-carers. And I'm hoping that a bunch of people can let that identity rest into their sub-conscious, integrate it into themselves, and that it will buoy them up and move them to change the world around them. I'm hoping that bunch of people can include Catholics and non-Catholics and Gaelic-lovers and Gaelic-not-bothered-ers.
That would be the distinctiveness and solidarity needed to make things better.
(Just to say again, being Neutral, Democratic and Federal can be shown to be part of a historic identity. And for Gaelic-lovers, even a part of our Gaelic heritage but renewed. As a Catholic it could be shown to be part of our Catholic social teaching and vision of persons too,etc)
With regard to post 'irishconfederate, would you be able to summarise Fennell's argument as to how nationalism is inherently imperialistic? I see that it can be, but not that it must be.'
I will need to re-read Beyond Nationalism to answer that fully. I can say though that Fennell argues that nationalism (meaning the ideology in the era regarded as modern history) is implicitly imperialistic in one aspect: it generally views nations as a mass of individuals and not as a living in communities, and it creates a nation-state with a power centre that de-communalises those communities and that nation state becomes a coffin of many sub-communities including a lot of times in modern history many other nations.
There are other reasons too he provides but I can't articulate them. He sees nationalism as needing just a tweak to make it a really useful tool to tackle that phenomena that people through history have felt when they experience the world around them as being... a province.
Neutral, Democratic and Federal identity....anyone?
God bless,
irishconfederation.org |
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 27, 2016 21:00:32 GMT
Thanks for that, irishconfederate. Very interesting and I'm glad to hear we agree about national identity being the primary thing.
I do see Fennell's point about nationalism having a tendency to de-emphasize the regional and community identities of the nation's component parts. I suppose I just don't see it as being necessary or as big a deal or Fennell seems to think it. So, yes, a 'tweak' seems to be appropriate.
As for 'neutral, democratic, and federal', I'm all for at least the first two of those characteristics, and I'm open to the third. I suppose I just don't really see them as being distinguishing. They seem very abstract to me, and any amount of countries could embody them.
But, as I feel I'm rather repeating myself and somewhat monopolising the thread, I would prefer to hear what other contributors think. Certainly I don't mean to shoot down irishconfederate's very interesting and well-thought-out ideas.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 28, 2016 21:02:37 GMT
I've recently been reading Jane Jacobs' THE LIFE AND DEATH OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES, which is a famous discussion of how cities work and an indictment of early C20 Progressive ideas of city-planning (basically founded on suburbanisation and top-down planning and uniformity) and a couple of points come to mind in relation to THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL:
(1)Jacobs' thesis sounds very Adam Waynesque, but in fact Adam Wayne is a nationalist, not a localist. The book is not interested in how Notting Hill works as an entity - the small street which the other boroughs want to sweep away to allow for a great road is defended not because it is useful to Notting Hill but simply because it is theirs, the water tower is a national symbol not part of a functioning landscape.
(2) Chesterton's ideal is really a version of Ebenezer Howard's Garden City of self-contained suburbs - he grew up in Bedford Park which was designed as a Howardesque community - and in this sense he actually has more in common with the planners Jacobs is attacking than with Jacobs, who is defending a particular sense of urban flux and fluidity.
One other thing that struck me is that cities these days are in many respects even less Jacobseque than in her day - she emphasises things like children playing on the street in Lower Manhattan, neighbourhoods where everyone keeps an eye out for the children, etc. The pricing of families out of city centres and the decline of local industries, and the rise of the TV and other screens, has much to do with this.
Any thoughts?
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 28, 2016 21:23:14 GMT
I never felt a sense of identity as a lifelong Dubliner. The fact that the sights I saw every day were Dublin sights was less real to me than the more abstract atmosphere of Irishness.
I feel more of a sense of identity as a lifelong Ballymuner than a lifelong Dubliner!
I presume the critique of impersonality that you make at the end, Hibernicus, could probably apply all round and not just to cities. Certainly our screens and the great distances we increasingly travel to work and study seem to militate against community.
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Post by irishconfederate on Jun 30, 2016 21:34:36 GMT
Hello,
Thought it would be right to highlight that the ideas that I have been talking about are not mine. I'd like to think they are of a school of national thought that has continued a tradition of Irish political thought, over the past sixty years. Underground, somewhat. That school, unconscious of itself as such in the whole, has included Tom Barrington, Robert Ballagh, Ivor Browne, Anthony Coughlan, Raymond Crotty, Seamus Deane, Desmond Fennell, Declan Kiberd, Charles McCarthy, Fergal O'Connor, amongst others.
A lot of them were Catholics (one of them was a priest), or, living today, are Catholics. I take a lot of heart from that fact.
Desmond Fennell has been one of the most thorough, and the probably the most prolific writer from this "school" of Irish thought.
Hence most of the ideas I have been posting, or which on the site irishconfederation.org, have been articulated by him. With of course my flawed take on it all.
The Constitution Club was founded, and some of those names mentioned were members of it. I think it could have been around before Crotty won for us the referendum. Likewise, the Association for the Advancement of Self-Governance, some of the names were part of.
God bless.
"...that we may carve an Attica out of Ireland." George Russell
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Post by irishconfederate on Jul 7, 2016 19:13:40 GMT
Hello,
I read the following last night in The State of the Nation by Des Fennell (published in 1983), and something struck me, I've put it in bold: Our last venture -using the features of Gaelic and Catholic- was strong enough to differentiate us and maintain nationhood. I've been recently trying out a self-definition along the lines of:
"the self-governing Irish" expressed in a federal and radically democratic state structure, implicitly linked historically back through our long freedom struggle and in the provinces and tuatha and decentralisation of Gaelic Ireland and implicitly linked to our Catholicism through the principle of subsidiarity and solidarity. Also, neutral, and an island nation, a Switzerland of the Atlantic.
What struck me was the example of Cuba.
I think we would need to "plant, deliberately and ostentatiously" something else, in addition to a federal, neutral, democratic, island nation identity.
With a distinct religion and/or language that binds us all together not available to us in 2016, I don't know what else it could be?
What I keep in mind is that this self-definition has to impinge/be felt by the "man in the street", it has to be acceptable and serviceable and "felt" by him in his daily life............
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