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>Pan American Games / Copa América / Summit of the Americas / Pan American Treaty / I could go on. Oh, come now. You yourself acknowledged that "the Americas"

by TMWNN 4y ago

>Pan American Games / Copa América / Summit of the Americas / Pan American Treaty / I could go on. Oh, come now. You yourself acknowledged that "the Americas" refers to North and South America. I don't need to explain why "Pan American" isn't the same thing as "American". And as I said before, the English use of "America/American" to specifically refer to the USA and its people is shared by all European languages other than Spanish. >"Being European" is a relatively new idea that emerged in the aftermath of two world (but euro-centric) wars. It didn't really have a geographic locus per se, but referred to a certain kind of committment to a certain idea of "Europe". The UK did not consider itself part of that idea for several decades after the end of WWII, and arguably a majority of the population never really did (even if they supported the idea "for those people over there"). I don't disagree at all about the historical distinguishing between the UK and "Europe". (Insert "FOG COVERS CHANNEL / EUROPE CUT OFF" anecdote here.) But that is orthogonal to whether Brexit made the UK suddenly not "European" (at least, any more than before), as the other poster's wailing claimed. You also didn't answer my/Venn's question. Are the Swiss and Norwegians European, and why/why not? Now, it's entirely possible that, should the EU survive, perhaps a century from now, "Europe/European" will refer specifically to the EU and its residents. But we're not there yet and not even the most fanatic pro-EU Remainer in the UK would claim this. (The relevance of this question to the aforementioned discussion of "America/American"'s meaning is left as an exercise for the reader.)

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
Swiss and Norwegian folk are from Europe. They are countries in Europe. Are they are a part of the post-WWII effort to forge a European identity i.e. being European. Seems to me that this likely varies generationally and also individually. I suspect there are numerous Swiss and Norwegian people that are meet this criterion of "being European", but it may not be the majority. Of course, the same could be said for the populations of the member states of the EU too. It is definitely true of the UK, where there are lots of people who really do think of themselves, even with Brexit essentially complete, as Europeans, and lots of other people who absolutely reject that identity. For those who do think of themselves as European, Brexit has made it much, much harder for them to live as if that had real consequences.

by TMWNN 4y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

Swiss and Norwegian folk are from Europe. They are countries in Europe. Are they are a part of the post-WWII effort to forge a European identity i.e. being European. Seems to me that this likely varies generationally and also individually. I suspect there are numerous Swiss and Norwegian people that are meet this criterion of "being European", but it may not be the majority. Of course, the same could be said for the populations of the member states of the EU too. It is definitely true of the UK, where there are lots of people who really do think of themselves, even with Brexit essentially complete, as Europeans, and lots of other people who absolutely reject that identity. For those who do think of themselves as European, Brexit has made it much, much harder for them to live as if that had real consequences.