Ethnonationalism, civic nationalism, and others

Civic Nationalism is wrong headed and on its own, will never truly work. Sure it works fine so long as the immigrants are from broadly similar cultures AND you enforce assimilation laws (Must speak the language of the land to prosper, encourage them to adopt common national first names for their children, heavily favour the national religion and encourage them to convert, little touches like that were considered basic common sense centuries ago, and weren't really questioned) This is, afterall, how we Irish effectively Gaelicized our conquerors, the Normans and the Vikings, turning them into the Norse-Gaels and Old-English respectively and now the average genetic ancestry of a Fitzwilliam or a MacAsgaill is usually over 90% Irish (if you know anything about genetic homogenity that is CRAZILY high here in Europe, the only places higher are Finland and, surprisingly enough, the North of Italy who are still the same cisalpine celts they always were). The key difference between those conquerors and the later English invasion, was of course they were all Catholic (eventually in the case of the Norse-Gaels) so intermarriage and assimilation was easier and in some ways inevitable.

In the modern day however, civic nationalism can't quite work the same as it did in those times. Flood England with white north Americans with heavy English ancestry and you're still likely to change England irrevocably. But thats if its a flood, if its slow and steady and assimilation is enforced, it would work a lot better. I prefer a mixture of Ethnic and Civic nationalism where the state favours and promotes the revival of the Gaelic language and its civilization, and does its best to ensure the prosperity of the Irish people, socially, culturally, economically and ethnically. We're too small a country to be messing around with mass migration in an era were we are a ridiculously thin sliver of a minority of the world's overall population. I am not against immigration, truth be told, especially not to people who wish, in a sense, to genuinely become Irish (most immigrants from America and the Anglosphere genuinely tend to be this kind of immigrant who want to be assimilated.) which I am fine with.

In short I want a nationalism that promotes the growth of our population to the size it should have been had the famine not happened. With the current 'Greening' of Europe where our forests are growing to sizes not seen since the end of the Roman era because we now have technology that allows to feed more people with less land used, we really have no excuse not to encourage this. I want 'too many Irishmen' to be a problem the future simply has to deal with as a reality. My only fear is it would create mini 'Dublins' all over the Country, we've seen what that does vis-a-vis liberalisation of a people.

The emphasis of the Alt Right on DNA and skin pigmentation is dangerous yes, its a direct consequence of the identity politics the left has been playing for decades now. My only real hesitancy regarding the matter is that on some level, it does matter. How much it should matter and in what way I don't know yet.

A full civic nationalist would emphasis it doesn't matter, at all which is the current American stance on the issue, that anyone who comes to the country, adopts its values, is an American, regardless of blood or ancestry. For a long time this seemed to be true but it was only because the American government carefully and selectively allowed enough immigration to 'fill up the country' do its best to disperse the new population to prevent ethnic enclaves forming (which they will do naturally) and then slowly ensure they adopt the culture of the country and 'become Americans' via assimilation. Whats often forgotten is how America deliberately narrowed the number of desirable countries of origin for most immigrants to be white European countries (or similar daughter nations, like Canada and Australia). This was done to maximise assimilation and reduce the likelihood of enclaves which, if you know history happened anyway. Irish families tended to congregate in New England and Germanic families out in the mid west still spoke German up until the first world war, when pressures to conform made them adopt English. Then America went off the hinges with immigration in the 1960s. So basically for most of its history civic nationalism in America had an unstated 'but only if you're white and Christian' clause regarding immigrants.

The opposite extreme is full, shameless, ethnonationalism, the prime example of which would be Japan, which basically allows in almost no immigrants to its country, come Hell or High Water, even if you married a Japanese person you'd only be given residency and not citizenship (though that may be changing, which is a stupid decision to make in today's world). This is, at least, peaceful in its execution if somewhat stiff necked and diffident. You also had Australia which was so hilariously shameless in its immigration policy for many years that it actively selected against anyone who wasn't European. Essentially it was hard enough for Europeans to get in, but anyone who wasn't a European, or European descendant, had to speak two European languages to pass the entrance requirement. One Chinese man had went to the trouble of learning every European language he could in order to be admitted. And when the test came, the two languages he was asked to write answers in were English... and Basque, a language he had probably never even heard of.

It is shameless and perhaps unfair, but the problem we need to realise here is this: Immigration is not a right. You have no right to demand entry into another man's house, even if you are in need. Should skin pigmentation and ethnic ancestry matter in terms of who you allow into the country? In the past I would have said no, but now I am not so sure. If you took every Irishman on this island and wipe them from the Earth, fill the country with Slavs from Eastern Europe, brainwash them to think they are Irish to the point of speaking fluent Gaelige and let them call themselves Irish, are they Irish? A good friend of mine would argue there would essentially be no difference if you did such. Now imagine the same thing only the replacing population is a bunch of Africans, or Middle Easterners. Now the only difference is skin pigmentation, right? Nothing else? Would China still be China if you erased all the Chinese and filled the country up with Ethnic Irishmen who all spoke Chinese?

Is there no spiritual aspect to a nation's continuity in its connection with its ancestors?

I agree a form of Romantic Nationalism is preferable to all this hogwash, the problem is a romantic nationalism would still include elements of ethnonationalism (relation to the ancestors in spirit at least with blood being preferable) which will repulse the civic nationalists, who will see themselves as too principled to truck with such evident racism. And it would repulse the ethnonationalists who would view the airs of civic nationalism within Romantic Nationalism as treacherous deceit, seeing it as yet another guys of short sighted civic nationalists as it is not nearly racist enough. A reconciliation needs to occur here and I ma not sure how it could be achieved.

(It should be noted we need to define our terms here. Racism is defined in judging an indidivual person's character based on their birth into one group or another, not necessarily the judgement of that group as a whole based on their past behaviour. Sectarianism I would argue operates the same way. Judging Muslims as a whole as dangerous because of their historic practices is not sectarianism, but judging an individual muslim as a dangerous terrorist is prejudiced and sectarian, even if he has not given you cause to think that about him personally. Its a fine line to thread.)

True but I think what Rogerbuck is worried about is Genetic Determinism, which I will concede is a genuine fear if we reduce it to genetics like the Alt Right does. The naturalist, nihilist bent of modern day atheism mixed with the 'race-realism' pf the Alt-Right can lead to dangerous consequences. I am not denying there is nothing to it, I am simply saying we have to be careful about this discussion.

This is an interesting thread although not one I'm able to contribute much to at present.  I did however want to concur with Roger's sentiments above.  Speaking for myself - I am only partly Irish, and spent many years living in the US, where I was educated. This background no doubt influences what I am about to say:

The notion of a DNA connection to Ireland is, in my view, a bit overhyped; "being Irish" is, to a significant degree, a state of mind (more on that point later). Ireland today is made up largely of men who are genetically Irish but who pledge loyalty to one tribe only: the Globalists.

I am by no means a civic nationalist and in fact am largely in agreement with what you say here, ergo my choice of words - "a bit overhyped."  Genetics are a big part of the puzzle, but I still don't understand however how a people can abandon their cultural identity en masse in a single generation and replace it with a globalist identity if DNA is that overwhelming a force.  There must be something much deeper at work than DNA per se to hold a national identity together - given how rapidly ours has unravelled.  

I agree with you, Mourning Ireland....genetics is part of the recipe, certainly not all of it by any means.

An interesting aspect of this question, in the Irish context, is that Sinn Féin (Provisional) strike me as a party who were civic nationalists all along but who used the trappings of ethnonationalism-- the Irish language, Irish music, GAA games, and so forth. Now, there's no logical contradiction there, but there does seem to be a certain mismatch in style and substance.