Ethnicity and national culture: past, present future

Abstract

Many contemporary philosophers, and especially postmodern ones, emphasize that history is one of the representative practices by which the human subject is reproduced. It can probably be argued that the past is a definite model with which, in conditions of total uncertainty, historical perspectives can be outlined for the consolidation of society. It is the past that can become a “useful” resource with the help of which the ethnic group recreates its integrity and - accordingly - its present and future. , the main subjective nature of ethnocentrism is emphasized by many researchers. Thus, according to anthropological interpretations, subjective vision (how national problems, considered in their historical retrospective, are seen by the agents of the conflict) may be more important than the objectivity of historical science. In fact, distrust of historical meta-narratives is becoming an integral feature of modern social theories. This does not mean that arguing for subjectivism as an essential feature of ethnocentrism is the only position. It will be more correct to compare not nationalism and ethnocentrism, but nationalism and ethnicity, as a deep foundation of nationalism. So, in Western social science it is customary to connect nationalism with nation-building, identifying it with statehood, while ethnicity is considered as a source and way of constructing identity. At the same time, various approaches to assessing the correlation of ethnicity and nationalism have developed. So, there is an interpretation of nationalism as a kind of a political movement based on a false consciousness, which is created by ethnicity, but cannot be explained, because it has deeper roots that lie in political economy, and not in culture. Collective memory supports historical continuity through recollections of specific elements from the “archives of historical memory”. This makes an analytical approach to the subjective discursive construction of ethnic identity possible, especially regarding the issue of what kind of "national history" is told, what and how is recalled, and between which “events” a connection is established, which is reflected in subjective representations.