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The New Europe With Lasting Peace (100 year old map)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 6y agoNot really sure why someone is posting German propaganda from a century ago on Remembrance Sunday?
- praptak 6y agoHow is that propaganda? Looks like a honest (and maybe naive) project.
- everybodyknows 6y agoStates, or cantons, in the shape of narrow pie-wedges, with borders cutting straight across rivers and mountains, are obviously impossible to administer. For a lively introduction to the failure at Versailles, I can recommend John Maynard Keynes' Notes on the Peace.
- steeleduncan 6y agoBecause it is not German propaganda from a century ago. It is a peace plan from a century ago, that imagined a world in which the Second World War never need have happened.
- vetinari 6y agoPeace plan that wipes out entire nations and cultures? Huh, how peaceful.
- allannienhuis 6y agoI'll take that as a sarcastic response and that you doubt that reducing the influence of nations would promote peace. Tribalism (Nationalism) is the cause or justification for most wars, no? Us against Them. Whether it's Nations or Religions or Races. I think tribalism is so deeply rooted in most of our cultures, that ideas that challenge it are hard to process for most people. I think there's a lot of value in challenging assumptions. This specific proposal has a whole host of problems with it, but there is still merit in the idea of dealing with the cultural forces of nationalism.
- vetinari 6y ago> Tribalism (Nationalism) is the cause or justification for most wars, no? No. It may be a banner under which a specific group is united, but it is never a cause. The urge to take over resources that someone else controls is.
- allannienhuis 6y agoI think it's fair to say that the root of most/much war is greed in one form or the other. But it doesn't work without being able to convince other people that they'll benefit from joining that cause, based on being members of your group/nation. Those wars are justified typically by generating a shared sense of fear and/or hate for the other side. If people's ties or shared identity to that group were weaker, it would be harder for people to buy into that propaganda. I find this interesting, because without some unifying forces I don't think our modern society would be able to function well. I'm just not sure Geography and national identity/culture are the best way to unify people. Can't say that I have any better alternatives though, other than thinking that if our personal identities were less tied to our national identity, the world might be a little friendlier place.
- vetinari 6y agoPersuading masses, that there's some higher good worth pursuing is how all ideologies work (including religion). For creating a us/them group, any shared/diving trait can be used. It can be tribal, religion, or it can be class (bourgeoisie vs workers), or ahem intersectional.
- hutzlibu 6y agoWell, I never head of that plan before, but if it is a peace plan, it is one that gives thought to the ethnicity of occupation troops. When you have occupation troops, you not always have peace, last time I checked.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoIs that German propaganda? Sankt Stephan is at the center of the realm, Berlin is drawn just as just another province. Sankt Stephan would be the center of Vienna, correct me if I am wrong. Someone was trying to make the Habsburg empire great again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vie...
- scrollaway 6y agoA lot of people (especially across the waters) have no idea where Switzerland is on a map, nor that they speak German (Same with Austria). I'm going to guess that might have to do with GP's assumptions…
- chmod775 6y agoGerman propaganda for a peaceful Europe that wants to make St. Stephan the center of which, produced in 1920 Vienna, Austria... ? Yeah this makes sense.
- allendoerfer 6y agoThe author calls Austria a German state just like Bavaria.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yorwba 6y agoAustria is basically the German-speaking part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was even briefly called the "Republic of German-Austria" after the empire's dissolution in 1918: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_German-Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_German-Austria
- sveme 6y agoBecause Austria was a German state. We are talking 1920, mind. A national Austrian identity separate from the wider German one did not develop until after the second world war.
- goto11 6y agoAustria was an independent empire which was only dissolved in 1918. It existed before the unification of Germany.
- sveme 6y agoGermany wasn't a country before 1871. However, Germany existed as a cultural region. Austria was always considered to be a part of Germany, even the leading part. When Germany united, there were two options, the small-Germany (kleindeutsche) and large-Germany (großdeutsche) solution, the latter including either the whole Austrian empire or just the German-speaking parts in the unified country. The reason why this did not come to pass was that Bismarck and the Prussian rulers (Hohenzollern) wanted to control Germany, not share the rule with the competing Habsburh family, the rulers of Austria-Hungary.
- AndIndeedHeWill 6y agoEven if this was propaganda (in the pejorative sense), I doubt any other medium or outlet will be taking this Sunday off. When I need a break from the propaganda I always switch on [streaming service] and watch [latest hip series starring biracial protagonist with quirky LGBTIQ best friend in semi-fictional borderless country].
- moreflagsthanu 6y agoEven if this was propaganda (in the pejorative sense), I doubt any other medium or outlet will be taking this Sunday off. If you need a break from the propaganda, you can always open [streaming service] and watch [latest hip series starring biracial protagonist with quirky LGBTIQ best friend in semi-fictional borderless country].
- Delk 6y agoI also first thought it looked like a German-centric idea of a "united" Europe after most of it had been joined to Germany. But I think it's probably actually a highbrow vision of (Central) Europe amalgamated into a union where the supposed peace comes from the amalgamation rather than from subversion. The radial "kantons" in the map, for example, have been denoted as having a military presence of various ethnic groups, not just Germanic, and the various ethnic groups maintaining a military presence are all over the place and alternating over each neighbouring sector/"kanton". I also don't really think a German propaganda map would include things such as present southern Italy being assigned as part of Greece when Greece was actually neutral or Allied during World War 1 (and invaded by Nazi Germany in WW2, in case you'd think the map was from Nazi Germany age.) Edit: The metadata also says it's from 1920, as the title indicates Edit 2: Most people outside of the British/US world probably also wouldn't even know it's a particular day there. Have a good one, though.
- durnygbur 6y agoIf implemented, hydrogen bomb invented only 25 later would had been dropped just in the center point.
- gen220 6y agoIt’s a very out of the box idea (one of the recommendations is to abandon national languages and compel the widespread adoption of Esperanto, another one is the designation of most of the Italian peninsula as “Churchland”), but it’s impressive that people could seriously entertain such out of the box ideas as recently as 100 years ago. The radial approach is really an interesting one. Imagine what all the border crossings would look like? All of the villages that would end up split. How would this territory defend itself, with these borders the are irreverent to topography and natural resources? What would the apparatus of state look like? It probably would cause as many new conflicts as it would solve. But it’s impressive somehow to see such a weird plan so deeply-developed. One can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be immediately shot down before it could be developed, today. It’s reminiscent of that famous plan suggested by a school teacher, to dam the San Francisco Bay, which was taken seriously enough to be modeled to scale by the military.
- scrollaway 6y ago> It’s reminiscent of the plan suggested by a school teacher, to dam the San Francisco Bay, which was taken seriously enough to be modeled to scale by the military. For those unaware, I learned of this plan via this short Tom Scott video. Fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i70wkxmumAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i70wkxmumAw (4:33)
- jaynetics 6y agoI think the impracticality of the borders is purposeful, a suggestion that you might want to leave room for some cultural differentiation here and there, but not really have border checks or any other limiting elements that give them any kind of practical importance.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoVillages and towns are split now. There are hundreds of locations around the EU where different sides of a street are in different countries - or (worse now) straddling the UK/Ireland border. Which is not to suggest that pie-shaped political geography is a good idea. But splitting towns is much less of a show-stopper than old-fashioned tribal and religious affiliations.
- m_mueller 6y agoAs a Swiss I find this interesting, but I think it misses an integral part of what is a ‘Kanton’, at least most of them: A former city state that has joined the confederation on ‘its own will’, however that worked for the local government at the time of joining. By becoming a ‘Kanton’, the main form of governance of the confederation has become mandated, direct democracy. IMO this requires a coherent existing local government that is representative of local culture to the point where a majority of its inhabitants at least agrees with how they’re governed. Note that this doesn’t necessarily imply homogenous ethnicity, language or religion (although in Switzerland it did separate into catholic vs. protestant regions). A brain-child like this map could never work in this way. But I have some hope that a Kantonal / confederate system could prevail if there was a collapse in European nation states. Switzerland, if it still exists at that point, could serve as an example that has proven itself stable since 1847. While that doesn’t match the age of the US system, it’s still older than most continuous European republics.
- burlesona 6y agoTo be fair you could argue that the US has only been stable since the end of the US Civil War in 1865. I’m interested in the Swiss system. How much autonomy do the Kantons have?
- jagrsw 6y agoI live here for >10 years, but not a citizen. Yet, I read some laws and learned some history b/c I'll be applying for citizenship soon. It's a story of gradual centralization since mid-19th-century at least. It had pretty much only common currency then, but now many more things are common: criminal code, military, national bank, elements of civil law, constitution, organization of highways, the last final judicary instances, personal taxes + VAT + import duties at the federal level, common national security agency, many federal laws, types of immigration permits, laws wrt naturalization (with some regional changes). It goes only one way, pretty much every federal law leaves some space for cantons and for communes to specify details, but the trend is that this space left for cantons/communes shrinks over time. E.g. the naturalization law which I'm interested in says on the federal level that applicants should be able to communicate at least at B1 (speaking/listening) / A2 (reading/writing) level of the cantonal official language. Most cantons leave it as is, but some (e.g. canton Thurgau) increased it to B2/B1. My canton (Zurich) leaves only little space for communes to influence the naturalization process (pretty much they can only check whether somebody is integrated, as in if they have Swiss acqauintances and visit local events and know something about the commune). Other cantons can leave communes more flexibility, e.g. to set higher level of language requirements or time someone lived in them.
- UncleDiaz12 6y agoWhen has straight lines worked out without genocide?
- ComputerGuru 6y agoColorado would like a word. I’m mostly kidding, but not entirely. The point is that they work (only?) when there are no cultural/religious/tribal implications and are merely for administrative purposes. It’s really the reason why the borders on the east coast of the USA are so messy compared to those past the Mississippi.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoI suspect that native Americans would like a word with your word.
- UncleDiaz12 6y agoExactly my point.
- ComputerGuru 6y agoThat's hardly a Colorado-specific issue. They were wronged from day 0, and forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands.
- runarberg 6y agoProbably only in Antarctica. But that is not because the lines are straight.
- phreeza 6y agoI don't think it is really about straight lines, most borders are probably where they are due to some circumstances involving lots of violence. It's just that straight lines are a modern concept, so the related violence is more present in our minds.
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- csours 6y agoLand doesn't vote - has there ever been a serious attempt to allow political representation by chosen group, no matter where you are? I guess the difficulty would be enforcement of laws - "I'm not bound by those rules, I'm bound by these rules" I can almost imagine it working with a computer system, but then I think about the problems and weaknesses with the World Wide Web, and I get a little sad.
- hutzlibu 6y ago""I'm not bound by those rules, I'm bound by these rules" I don't think that makes much sense. Imagine people coming to your house and declaring you, they are not bound by your home rules, but rather their own rules - so they start a trash party now. In other words, I think it very much makes sense to bound land and rules. Exception might be nomadic people, like beduins travelling through the desert: when you come to their tents, you are bound by their rules, even though the tents change place.
- csours 6y ago> Exception might be nomadic people, like beduins travelling through the desert: when you come to their tents, you are bound by their rules, even though the tents change place. And dispossessed peoples like the Rohingya in Myanmar, or the Kurds who live in 3 different countries and are not particularly well liked by any of their 'hosts'; the Uyghurs in China. But people have to live somewhere, and places have governments, and governments may not like some people.
- hutzlibu 6y ago"But people have to live somewhere, and places have governments, and governments may not like some people. " Which is a reason I like the idea of federalism with much more power on the base. Basically, small, but connected states, so chances are higher, the local government represents the local people.
- supernova87a 6y agoWell, I think this so nicely points out the differences between a solution that comes from the top versus one that comes from the bottom. It could almost even illustrate the pitfalls and hopes of someone architecting without the details, and saying "just make it work!" When you plan from the top, you leave the details (and pain) to someone else to work out. There are 10,000 little problems that you don't have time to think through and delegate it down to the people day-by-day to figure out how to fit into your symbol of clean order. (and often don't or can't, leading to anger at the top when details don't cooperate) Versus when people work out their patchwork of little agreements with each other to their temporary satisfaction to get on with life every day, it works but has no coherent direction to it. Like a coral reef figuring out how to grow -- somehow every little piece figured out how to live, but no one exactly told it how to do so. It is to be marveled at in the rare cases when someone from the top designs something with the reality of the bottoms-up in mind, and can make it work.
- peter303 6y ago99 years of avoiding major power wars from Napoleons defeat to the Kaiser. There were lesser wars to assemble the modern republics from feudal antecedents.
- m463 6y agoThis makes me think of an old video game called The Last Express When you finish the game and roll the credits it shows a map of europe over most of the last century. The map borders frequently change. (this is probably why europeans have a good grasp of privacy laws) EDIT: here are the credits (low res) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eLhDN3qKE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eLhDN3qKE0