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carefulfungiyesterday at 8:43 PM1 replyview on HN

Sorry for assuming you were European in expressing what I see as ironic. Perhaps itself ironic as a mistake. My bad.

I think Europe and the Americas are differently heterogeneous and differently homogeneous. Certainly the Europeans have made more practical strides in building a coalition across their members than, say, South America or Central America. The reality is that Europe demonstrates a higher degree of solidarity between states than these other places. So it's strange to me to argue the opposite.

But if I understand, your assertion is that the Mayans, the islanders of the Caribbean, the people of Peru, or the Amazonians are less culturally different from one another than the citizens of, say, Greece and Norway? I'm not sure I buy it personally .. but I can see your argument.


Replies

ericmaytoday at 12:54 AM

Well, that solidarity I think you are taking for granted and of course a lot of the disagreements don’t quite make global news unlike any time Trump eats a booger someone in the international media is blowing up over it. But the EU was a very large and intentional project born out of the incredibly devastating conflicts of World War I and World War II. For most of history Europeans were violently feuding with each other. My point originally was that the current state of the EU is a remarkable achievement precisely because of the animosity, history, and very broad cultural differences between European nations.

I wouldn’t say my assertion is that the peoples you mention are less culturally different (I’m not sure and not sure how we measure that) my assertion is if you were to attempt to form a bloc that those cultural differences are very small relative to the whole.

Just like how in the US we have cultural influence from the tribal people that lived here but by and large it’s a small cultural aspect and not the predominant one. I’m not minimizing their importance, significance, or heritage. I’m just saying if you had to go and take people who live in these countries they would be easier to organize as a whole into something of a bloc because at the nation state level they are more, of course it’s just my opinion, homogeneous in interests than when the EU was being put together.

I’m interested in hearing what you think here as well. I’m just chit-chatting - sorry if I sound argumentative. I’m working on not sound like that as much.