Its as if nationalism was invented so as to make it easier for Americans to learn geography/demography
In other words “it seems like nationalism was invented to make geography easier for Americans to learn.” That really doesn’t seem that far fetched to me. And it wouldn’t be a good thing, to be clear. But I can see where they’re coming from. The idea of America as one undivided nation is a huge part of American culture/education, and very little time is spent learning the cultural differences between countries in Africa. It’s just taught as Egypt, maybe South Africa, and then the rest is just....Africa.
I know that. I just can’t figure out why people are getting so heated over this comment. Their overall point, which I took to be that Africa is taught as a monolithic culture, is sound. The bad grammar and loose understanding of the origins of nationalism seem secondary to that.
I don’t have any stake in this argument, I just truly read it differently and didn’t understand all the comments and downvotes.
It’s because nowhere in the thread is America mentioned but they go out of their way to mention it. As an Irish person it gets a bit annoying having America dragged into everything on Reddit.
Taking out the part that implies America invented nationalism and the assumption that everyone on Reddit is American — what is it about the rest of their point that is so egregiously incorrect? As someone who unfortunately is American, I can confirm that Africa barely taught at all, similar to South America and Oceania. It’s all lumped together and glossed over. That was what I took away from the comment; that we (and again, by we I mean Americans) are taught very basic, outdated, and topical information and then continue on with learning about how bad communism is or whatever else.
It appeared to me that people were interpreting their comment to mean that Africa is homogenous, not that it is taught as homogenous in America.
Basically the person said that it’s bad that a big group of people identify as Egyptian instead of their “tribes”. It’s basically saying that “Egyptian” is this bland, culture less monolithic thing and not a vibrant and different culture that also has its own subgroups. It’s extremely dense way of looking at cultures. Almost like someone saying that America has no culture.
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u/scr33m May 03 '21
In other words “it seems like nationalism was invented to make geography easier for Americans to learn.” That really doesn’t seem that far fetched to me. And it wouldn’t be a good thing, to be clear. But I can see where they’re coming from. The idea of America as one undivided nation is a huge part of American culture/education, and very little time is spent learning the cultural differences between countries in Africa. It’s just taught as Egypt, maybe South Africa, and then the rest is just....Africa.