PC: Separate Catholic and Protestant German ethnicities

You're using an equivalence of the "languages are dialects with armies to back it up". That is fine for nationalities, but not for ethnicities. Austria having an army does back up their claim to a nationality, but it does nothing to change that they are German by ethnicity, whether the people themselves see themselves that way or not. There is not, and never can be, an American ethnicity, or Canadian. There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.
By your criteria Norwegians and Swedes would be the same ethnic group because they are genetically similar. Also, ethnicity comes from the Greek word ethnos which simply means people.
 
You're using an equivalence of the "languages are dialects with armies to back it up". That is fine for nationalities, but not for ethnicities. Austria having an army does back up their claim to a nationality, but it does nothing to change that they are German by ethnicity, whether the people themselves see themselves that way or not. There is not, and never can be, an American ethnicity, or Canadian. There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.

You're using "ethnogensis" in a way I have never heard it used before. To me and "ethnogensis" is the event by which a group acquires an identity distant from other groups and thus becomes an ethnicity. For you it seems that "ethnogensis" requires there being some sort of genetic marker as a resuly of the event.

Am I undestanding your view of wthnicity correctly?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnogenesis
 

althisfan

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You're using "ethnogensis" in a way I have never heard it used before. To me and "ethnogensis" is the event by which a group acquires an identity distant from other groups and thus becomes an ethnicity. For you it seems that "ethnogensis" requires there being some sort of genetic marker as a resuly of the event.

Am I undestanding your view of wthnicity correctly?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnogenesis
Americans are an ethnic group then. I'm using it in the way academia uses it in political science and history, not how individuals define it in wiki-idiocy
 
Americans are an ethnic group then. I'm using it in the way academia uses it in political science and history, not how individuals define it in wiki-idiocy

Just to be perfectly clear, I'm not saying that Americans are an ethnic group, but I would describe African-Americans as an ethnic group (and would also describe WASP Americans as an ethnic group). I see America as a multi-ethnic country.
 
Just to be perfectly clear, I'm not saying that Americans are an ethnic group, but I would describe African-Americans as an ethnic group (and would also describe WASP Americans as an ethnic group). I see America as a multi-ethnic country.

Specifically, i feed that Americans are not an ethnic group for the same reason that marine mammals are not a clade in biology. Seals are more related to dogs than they are to dolphins so they should not be categorized in the same group as dolphins. Similarly African-Americans have more in common with African-Canadians than they do with White Americans so any ethnicity that includes African-Americans should also include African-Canadians.
 
You're using an equivalence of the "languages are dialects with armies to back it up". That is fine for nationalities, but not for ethnicities. Austria having an army does back up their claim to a nationality, but it does nothing to change that they are German by ethnicity, whether the people themselves see themselves that way or not. There is not, and never can be, an American ethnicity, or Canadian. There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.
It's very rare that modern anthropologists define ethnicity in terms of "blood".

In anthropology and sociology, there are three main schools of thought on the development of ethnicity and ethnogenesis.

1. Primordialism: the view that ethnic groups exist because they are based on shared traditions of behavior, belief, and action towards "primordial" factors. These factors include "biological features" (e.g. appearance), territorial location, and historically formed schema (e.g. "ancient national hatreds") in which traits believed to be essentialist may shape behavior and action in a way perceived to be relevant (even if this relevancy may be onset by environmental circumstances). This is the older view, doesn't strictly refer to "blood", and is the least common academic view.

2. Instrumentalism: the view that ethnic groups are a result of actions or behaviors shared by community leaders, elites, and people who surround those elites. Contrary to primordialism, cultural features of these community leaders or elites are adopted "instrumentally" as a method of social advancement for individuals to become members of these classes. Some forms of political mobilization can make appeals to the concept of ethnicity, which is used "as an instrument".

3. Constructivism: the view that ethnic groups are socially constructed and the way that they are constructed differs heavily by location, environment, and circumstance. According to constructivists, both the primordial and instrumentalist approaches are too essentialist, because features that may be instrumental in some regions may not apply in other regions. The differences between the same two ethnic groups, may be perceived differently in different locations, and in other words, wholly "constructed" depending on local and regional variations.

Anthropologists mix all three approaches into an integrated approach. Usually, they don't follow one school of thought unilaterally.

Primordialism, which isn't fully based on genetics, certainly isn't the most predominant view. There are some scholars that still adhere to it, but it's probably the least popular among anthropologists today. Constructivism is usually regarded as the most correct; nevertheless, recent scholarship still draws on all three schools.
 
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Ethnicities are subjective anyways, In my opinion I think it totally can be possible if there is a greater break between the majority protestant and majority Catholic areas
 
Honestly I don't think most Americans get how Old Worlders identifies themselves, I have a hard time finding a single marker less important than genetics.
 
@althisfan I can tell you are passionate about this, but I have to tell you that in my experience English-speakers don't use 'ethnicity' nearly as rigorously as you suggest. Here is the Merriam-Webster dfn:

"large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background"
 
The Swiss identity is a regional national identity, while the Dutch identity is a linguistic national identy push, both are pushed by states. Neither are based on religion. As for a 1860 POD, it would not be religious identities as 40% of the population in the 3 South German States would be Protestant and they would be in majority in one, also at that point German identity are far too strong.
If we have two new states, a greater Prussia and a greater Bavaria, that focus their state-building on protestantism and catholicism, in a hostile way, and single out the other group as foreign undesirables, then after seven decades or so, it might have become the new normal.
 
Anyway Catholic and Protestant Germans could be consider their own ethnic groups similar to Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians

Maybe a king Gustav-Adolph Wasa scenario, were he wins instead of ending up dead in Lützen. Maybe forms a Protestant Union with Sweden ? On the other hand asfellow member Jürgen correctly stated, there had been many enclaves within Protestant/ Catholic areas with people of the opposite religion. Sometimes there had been reprisals against Protestants or Catholics.
 
There's already the German-Austrian divide, which is already a bit arbitrary and strongly based on (dynastic) politics and religion. Wouldn't be too hard to expand that basic distinction. Always been an idea of mine to have the 30 years word lead into a 'split' of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation into a catholic Holy Roman empire, and a Protestant empire of the German Nation.
 
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