Ethnic Conflict

[GregBurch]

Inherent in much of the violence around the world is an unresolved conflict that lies at the foundation of the modern state system: the tension between ethnic and national identity on the one hand, and majority rule on the other. In the closed thread about Ossetia and Georgia, Andy made a disparaging comment about Woodrow Wilson, and rightly so, since Wilson's principle of "national self-determination" utterly glossed over this unresolved conflict.

In the current system of conflicting values, when an ethnic minority is at or above a certain size -- a size that varies depending on the cultures and polities involved -- the kind of conflict you see all around the borders of the Slavic world, for instance, happen. Because of the unresolved value conflict between "national self-determination" and "majority rule," each side in these conflicts can point to a fundamental value to justify violence.

I know I'm pointing out the obvious here, but it seems like no real dialogue is possible until this basic value conflict is identified. And no real solutions are possible unless a value even more fundamental than these two conflicting values is identified and observed by the parties concerned. Otherwise, all that ends up happening is bloodshed and finger-pointing.

 

[Urwumpe]

My personal opinion is, that there are no native "ethnic" conflicts in the world. There is only the usual power-mongering, with ethnics being only one way to create a "we against them" moment. It does not even need to be a large ethnic group - a virtual group, like a fraction of a political party, claiming to have a ethnic heritage, is enough. Then you just need larger powers and alliances supporting one small ethnic group against another and let these small groups have deputy wars.

Most conflict front lines, in the real world, actually go through ethnics - you just create a new one, for the politics that suit you. It is almost like Ostfalen lower saxons fighting Brunswick lower saxons only based on the fact, that one group was occupied by french troops a few years longer as the other.

 

[GregBurch]

My personal opinion is, that there are no native "ethnic" conflicts in the world. There is only the usual power-mongering, with ethnics being only one way to create a "we against them" moment.

I disagree. I think tribalism is genetically programmed into upright apes. It's not necessarily bad, since it's probably the biological origin of much of what we otherwise value as selflessness and altruism: Identifying with one's more distant kin as well as one's immediate relatives is the beginning of virtue in the biological sense. But we'd like to think that we can outgrow our genetic programming. Doing so, though, requires a great effort.

EDIT: Let me say that I DO agree with your statement that power elites use ethnic rivalries all the time in the way you describe. But I don't think they create them from nothing.

 

[Urwumpe]

I disagree. I think tribalism is genetically programmed into upright apes. It's not necessarily bad, since it's probably the biological origin of much of what we otherwise value as selflessness and altruism: Identifying with one's more distant kin as well as one's immediate relatives is the beginning of virtue in the biological sense. But we'd like to think that we can outgrow our genetic programming. Doing so, though, requires a great effort.

Do you know what your tribe is? More than your family? Your village? Maybe your neighborhood? Is it a matter of language? Region? Religion?

We have, biologically speaking, no sense of anything past our family. Tribes have been just larger family units and loose alliances of families. But this has nothing to do with ethnics. Ethnics are an abstract concept, just like nations and religions. Without people creating such abstract concepts for increasing the differences based on fictive arguments, there would be no ethnics.

 

[GregBurch]

Do you know what your tribe is? More than your family? Your village? Maybe your neighborhood? Is it a matter of language? Region? Religion?

We have, biologically speaking, no sense of anything past our family. Tribes have been just larger family units and loose alliances of families. But this has nothing to do with ethnics. Ethnics are an abstract concept, just like nations and religions. Without people creating such abstract concepts for increasing the differences based on fictive arguments, there would be no ethnics.

With respect, I think you've missed out on 50 or even 100 years of work in anthropology, ethology and evolutionary theory. Non-nuclear family kin selection is a reality that's observed throughout the human world and has been documented widely in the non-human world. Our closest relatives, chimps, do it.

We're exquisitely evolved to identify in-group and out-group membership. Our genes have co-evolved with our cultures for millions of years. The categories humans use for defining in-group and out-group membership are definitely fuzzy-edged. But the process is very real, and is centered on the kinds of things that humans spent most of their evolutionary history identifying with -- physical appearance, language and basic cultural expressions of simple biological functions like reproduction (i.e. marriage customs), nutrition (i.e. food customs) and the like. This is the core of what an "ethnic group" is -- people who look, talk and act like me.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I don't think ethnicity is the base cause of inter-ethnic tensions (as strange as that sounds). If everyone has their needs met and their survival is not threatened, why should they care that the fellow over there is a different color/sounds funny/wears a different hat? It's when things get hard and frustrating - bad economy, hard to make ends meet - if nothing else can be done, it is very easy to turn groups against each other, each blaming the other for the problems. It is an outlet for frustration. The greater the color difference, the funnier they sound, the pointier the hat, the easier it is to define the differences to 'us' vs. 'them'.

 

[GregBurch]

I don't think ethnicity is the base cause of inter-ethnic tensions (as strange as that sounds). If everyone has their needs met and their survival is not threatened, why should they care that the fellow over there is a different color/sounds funny/wears a different hat? It's when things get hard and frustrating - bad economy, hard to make ends meet - if nothing else can be done, it is very easy to turn groups against each other, each blaming the other for the problems. It is an outlet for frustration. The greater the color difference, the funnier they sound, the pointier the hat, the easier it is to define the differences to 'us' vs. 'them'.

In most cases, I totally agree with that. I think you can see that in the American "melting pot" experience: Ethnic differences between say, Irish or Italian or East European immigrants that were the cause of conflict when there was competition for scarce resources turned to, at worst, gentle humor and, at best, cultural spice when the pie got big enough for everyone.

 

[tl8]

I don't think ethnicity is the base cause of inter-ethnic tensions (as strange as that sounds). If everyone has their needs met and their survival is not threatened, why should they care that the fellow over there is a different color/sounds funny/wears a different hat? It's when things get hard and frustrating - bad economy, hard to make ends meet - if nothing else can be done, it is very easy to turn groups against each other, each blaming the other for the problems. It is an outlet for frustration. The greater the color difference, the funnier they sound, the pointier the hat, the easier it is to define the differences to 'us' vs. 'them'.

That is a good post

 

[Urwumpe]

With respect, I think you've missed out on 50 or even 100 years of work in anthropology, ethology and evolutionary theory. Non-nuclear family kin selection is a reality that's observed throughout the human world and has been documented widely in the non-human world. Our closest relatives, chimps, do it.

Of course, you have to remember the foundation of anthropology and even worse, ethology. They are based on two important assumptions: Human abstract behavior is the ideal of civilization and all test objects are seen through the eyes of abstract thinking scientists. And the assumption, that a abstract statistical scientific concept is the truth.


We don't test dolphins for their intelligence, for measuring how intelligent they are, but for measuring how intelligent we are. Chimps are also a good example: We attribute them to do politics, warfare and tribes, for seeing them with human eyes. We will rarely call it a civil war, when a teenager rebels against his parents, but we attribute this to similar scale conflicts inside groups of chimps - for the sake of drama. We wouldn't be as touched, when we would regard chimps as plain animals.

The same with ethology: We create abstract ethics for making large amounts of people scientifically manageable. We reduce them. From individuals with individual identities, to abstract ethics with a common identity. It is an abstract process, installed over the people. Look for example at the definition of the differences between the two ethic groups murdering each other in Rwanda - the definition of a Tutsi changed over the centuries from small local differences to being a different race for Hutu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Tutsi_and_Hutu

Was it a natural process? Sure not more than any human thinking.

 

[Xantcha]

I don't think ethnicity is the base cause of inter-ethnic tensions (as strange as that sounds). If everyone has their needs met and their survival is not threatened, why should they care that the fellow over there is a different color/sounds funny/wears a different hat? It's when things get hard and frustrating - bad economy, hard to make ends meet - if nothing else can be done, it is very easy to turn groups against each other, each blaming the other for the problems. It is an outlet for frustration. The greater the color difference, the funnier they sound, the pointier the hat, the easier it is to define the differences to 'us' vs. 'them'.

Nah.. those things are connected in different ways: frustration only fuels agression. Tribalism only aims that agression.

Tribalism (or ethnical identity or whatever) is an ancient respectfull cultural tradition - a man can be happy but still consider himself belonging to certain tribe and be proud of that.

 

[GregBurch]

Of course, you have to remember the foundation of anthropology and even worse, ethology. They are based on two important assumptions: Human abstract behavior is the ideal of civilization and all test objects are seen through the eyes of abstract thinking scientists. And the assumption, that a abstract statistical scientific concept is the truth.


We don't test dolphins for their intelligence, for measuring how intelligent they are, but for measuring how intelligent we are. Chimps are also a good example: We attribute them to do politics, warfare and tribes, for seeing them with human eyes. We will rarely call it a civil war, when a teenager rebels against his parents, but we attribute this to similar scale conflicts inside groups of chimps - for the sake of drama. We wouldn't be as touched, when we would regard chimps as plain animals.

Well, as often happens in our discussions here, you and I have hit upon a very fundamental philosophical disagreement. I am much more confident in the the ability of humans to be rational and filter out cognitive bias -- if they try -- than you seem to be. For instance, I don't see contemporary animal behavior science to be the kind of anthropmorphic projection you describe here. Yes, this was true 50 or 100 years ago. If anything, the "projection" has almost completely reversed in the last few decades, in the sense that human behavior is now much more perceived as a natural extension of a continuum from non-human animals, rather than the reverse.

The same with ethology: We create abstract ethics for making large amounts of people scientifically manageable. We reduce them. From individuals with individual identities, to abstract ethics with a common identity. It is an abstract process, installed over the people. Look for example at the definition of the differences between the two ethic groups murdering each other in Rwanda - the definition of a Tutsi changed over the centuries from small local differences to being a different race for Hutu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Tutsi_and_Hutu

Was it a natural process? Sure not more than any human thinking.

Please understand that I am not "reifying" ethnic groups in an intellectually primitive way: There are real genetic patterns in distinguishing some very, very large and fuzzy-edged human groups -- that's just a fact (but one that people on the political left resist mightily). But I'm much, much more talking about CULTURE when I speak about ethnicity. And culture is a VERY, VERY fuzzy-edged thing. It evolves and mutates quickly. On the other hand, our evolved sense of in-group and out-group membership persists.

 

[ar81]

Hitites won territories in Lebanon from the Egyptians.
Hities are goners now.
Roman empire does not exist.
In 20th century the remnants of British and French empire were gone, since colonies became independant.
In WWII Germany and Japan tried to create an empire and Germany ended chopped in 2 and Japan got nuked.
Cold war ended and USSR was fragmented, war on Iraq took place and US is now a divided country.

The power-mongering efforts of reviving an empire are denied by reality.
Politicians with media serving them is a powerful tool to lead political hooligans to kill others. Exposure to violence is kept high to keep a combat attitude. Ethnic conflicts seem to me the byproduct of manipulation.
Politics is about convenience, and that leads to moral relativism.

 

[simonpro]

So, ar81, in other words it's entirely pointless to make an empire, entirely pointless to make one's country better and entirely pointless to do anything.
Might as well go jump off the roof then.

 

[Xantcha]

Hitites won territories in Lebanon from the Egyptians.
Hities are goners now.
Roman empire does not exist.
In 20th century the remnants of British and French empire were gone, since colonies became independant.
In WWII Germany and Japan tried to create an empire and Germany ended chopped in 2 and Japan got nuked.
Cold war ended and USSR was fragmented, war on Iraq took place and US is now a divided country.

The power-mongering efforts of reviving an empire are denied by reality.
Politicians with media serving them is a powerful tool to lead political hooligans to kill others. Exposure to violence is kept high to keep a combat attitude. Ethnic conflicts seem to me the byproduct of manipulation.
Politics is about convenience, and that leads to moral relativism.

I see yout point. It's easy to blame all the violence on 'political hooligans', but I just can't agree on this. Humans are genetically bound to violence because it worked for millenia. And guess what? It still works.

P.S. "US is now a divided country" what do you mean?
P.P.S. About empires risen and fallen - simonpro is right, example you have given looks like this: "A was a great person and he died eventually, B was a genius and he died, C had a talent but was not immortal too.." .
Besides, if opressors were punished by history more than oppressed ones, than it would remove entire point of opressing someone

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, how dead is a Roman Empire, which still forms the base for not only our European culture, but also European law...

Without the common Roman heritage, I doubt we would have a European Union now. And the European Union is good in committing all errors again, which led to the end of the Roman Republic.

 

[ar81]

So, ar81, in other words it's entirely pointless to make an empire

Recent history suggests that.

entirely pointless to make one's country better and entirely pointless to do anything.
Might as well go jump off the roof then.

Define "better". EU got to unite Europe with diplomacy, while Hitler only divided his country with war. Countries that attempted to unite countries with war ended up divided.

 

[simonpro]

You realise that if Britain (and to a lesser extent, France) hadn't had the empire then Europe would probably be speaking German just now?
The empire provided a lot of troops for the Brits, and fought very bravely.

 

[Artlav]

What about the way the question is asked?

I mean, why do we look at why the ethnic conflict happen, instead of looking why they don't happen?

It may be worth trying to figure out why extremely different groups can live in real peace for centuries in one place, rather than figuring out why they can't somewhere else.

 

[Jarvitä]

It may be worth trying to figure out why extremely different groups can live in real peace for centuries in one place.

This is hardly universal, more of an exception. Can you cite any examples you had in mind?

 

[Urwumpe]

This is hardly universal, more of an exception. Can you cite any examples you had in mind?

How about Switzerland?