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Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

The thing that gets me about the US and Canada is that those countries don't even have an ethnic population to begin with. The ethnic population was put into camps and then replaced by a bunch of Europeans for a bunch of different countries to begin with.

Germany losing its national identity I can follow. France losing its national identity I can follow as well, although my sympathies are somewhat limited given the context of it. But the US and Canada ? You ask an average American and they tell you their a quarter Italian, A quarter German, 1/10 native American and 2/5th danish. What is the national identity here?

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We’re not allowed to have an American identity. Trying to cling to traditions is considered a conservative thing and thus inherently racist. American can only be defined by her failures, and any attempt to point out the successes is considered whitewashing history or something.

There were a number of places that sought to, or outright skipped, the Independence Day celebration this year. It’s now totally normal for some people to find the US flag “problematic” and itself a sign of oppression.

Little misunderstanding here. I'm not saying that the USA doesn't have a national identity, because it clearly does. What I'm saying is that because it is an entirely manufactured one, it is therefore predestined for conflict.

One of the bigger conflicts that societies have is that as they move from whatever traditional identity have they have find a set of common values that still makes for a common goal.

> One of the bigger conflicts that societies have is that as they move from whatever traditional identity have they have find a set of common values that still makes for a common goal.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

What more could one ask for?

An American may lack a cleat ethnic identity, but I suppose that the American national identity is very much a thing. The American values, the American dream, the liberty, the flag, etc. A large number of Americans is pretty patriotic, despite being ethnically varied.

While at it: both Germany and France used to be much more varied in cultures and languages, but were unified by their centralized states. A dilution of this unity is, in a sense, return to a more natural state of cultural variety.

If America didn’t have an ethnic identity you’d not be able to recognize Americans the world over l.

A ton of Americans around me identify ethnically in various ways, and keep some of their ethnical habits (Mexican, various Caribbean, Jewish, Irish, various African, several Chinese, etc).

Still, they see themselves as fellow Anericans.

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