The News Thread

nvm I was mixing up Europe with continental Europe.
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Europe is fucking terrible, why don't we have these metoo and himtoo clashes?? They look super fun. #envy #europeeons #eutoo #europeiscesspool
 
Are people from the U.K. considered Europeans? I know some Brits that get offended when they're called European, but that could be political.

Valid question that hasn't lost its relevance over the last couple of centuries. There's always been disagreement on both sides with support and opposition for both sides of the argument. During the period I study, quite a few German intellectuals explicitly argued, in reaction to the post-war wave of Anglo-American influence, that the Brits were not, and, instead, Germany should stick to it's continental roots. The same goes on the British side during the period, in which it wasn't uncommon for it to be argued that Britain should hesitate before meddling into European affairs. This is pretty clear at the outset of WWI. It was also a topic while good old Napoleon was running around the continent. Brexit and the reactions to it have made clear that discrepancies in opinion on this matter haven't lost their political significance.

"European" is a messy designation in general and the Cold War did an awful lot in shifting perceptions on who a European is and what type of European specifically. Germany was only considered Western after WWII, communist east Germany excluded, of course. Prior, they, along with Poland and Czech, were Central Europeans, the latter two of which are typically called Eastern European now (much to the chagrin of some Poles and Czechs). The EU, of course, throws another wrench into this, and the once seemingly likely prospect of Turkey joining doesn't complicate it any less.

In any case, I know some Scots and northern Irish who get offended by being called British while also identifying as European and wishing to stay within the EU.

tl;dr designations are never quite accurate and nobody will ever agree on anything.
 
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Makes me think, do Hawaiians consider themselves Americans?

As it relates to the U.K. and Europe, if it's to be determined solely by continental categorization, couldn't the same method be used to call Canadians Americans?

Thanks for the quick rundown, it's an interesting subject. The reason I initially brought it up was because I was reading along with a debate some friends were having mostly related to how, in one of their words, continental Europe tends to prefer technocracy, bureaucracy and statism at the expense of individualism while the Anglosphere tends to prefer basically the opposite and this is why it's problematic to lump the English in with Europeans.

I hadn't really thought about it much myself but it was interesting nonetheless.