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> “Killing a people” is genocide. But people do change their identities all the time. And sometimes the destruction of one identity leads to the creation of a

> “Killing a people” is genocide. But people do change their identities all the time. And sometimes the destruction of one identity leads to the creation of a new one. This has been a key part of all nation-building exercises. It is a purpose of education and mass-media. Is the unification of tribes, the destruction of difference, necessarily "genocide"? Also, if you can speak of the "death of a people", surely you can also speak of a "birth"? What is the source material of the new group? A grouping is an abstract concept. Individual people have a right to exist, but do abstract groups, just because we anthropomorphize them? Any adjective is an abstract grouping of all nouns to which it'd apply.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> But people do change their identities all the time. People die all the time, and its not murder. A deliberate campaign to kill a people is genocide. A people dieing by processes that don’t involve a deliberate campaign is not genocide.
brailsafe 5y ago
The attempted unification of tribes by removing their identity is different than unification. Unification is only so if whatever happens is a joint proposal of some sort
- SZJX 5y ago
  This distinction sounds quite contrived to me. Surely you could see that, in most cases throughout the history, when a united identity emerges out of several different tribes/groups whatsoever, there would be a leading group that exerted greater influence either by force or by (economic etc.) strength. Seldom is the case that all tribes decided that they were absolutely equal and would form a joint entity with the same amount of voluntariness from each side.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    I don't think you'd need absolute equality, influence, or perfect agreement, you'd just need it to facilitate somewhat voluntary cultural diffusion to decrease the level of conflict. In the context of the thread, it's historically accurate that this was already present in some ways during the centuries preceding Canada and the US' founding, but fell apart quite dramatically.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> But people do change their identities all the time. People die all the time, and its not murder. A deliberate campaign to kill a people is genocide. A people dieing by processes that don’t involve a deliberate campaign is not genocide.

brailsafe 5y ago

The attempted unification of tribes by removing their identity is different than unification. Unification is only so if whatever happens is a joint proposal of some sort

SZJX 5y ago
This distinction sounds quite contrived to me. Surely you could see that, in most cases throughout the history, when a united identity emerges out of several different tribes/groups whatsoever, there would be a leading group that exerted greater influence either by force or by (economic etc.) strength. Seldom is the case that all tribes decided that they were absolutely equal and would form a joint entity with the same amount of voluntariness from each side.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  I don't think you'd need absolute equality, influence, or perfect agreement, you'd just need it to facilitate somewhat voluntary cultural diffusion to decrease the level of conflict. In the context of the thread, it's historically accurate that this was already present in some ways during the centuries preceding Canada and the US' founding, but fell apart quite dramatically.