>>10374246I think where you're going wrong is looking at "white" as a concept in a J-left, Noel Ignatiev, social constructivist kind of way. It is a concept, sure, but not an empty or arbitrary one that refers to nothing actually that actually exists in the world.
Just because there wasn't always a coherent awareness of something doesn't mean it wasn't there. Nor does needing the presence or awareness of something foreign and different to put things in perspective. Just because an idea of a white race per se only emerged in colonial times doesn't invalidate it. Europeans were beginning to get a fuller picture of the world and of their place within it.
As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a good way to look at Europe and its colonies in sum without a collective racial concept. Sure there are lots of internal differences, fault lines and perpiphery ambiguity etc. but in terms of internal cultural and populational flow, it's also remarkably self-contained. Far too much so to maintain a viable ethnic nationalist stance solely built on monolithic national identities.
I've often heard it said that "people in Ireland (or insert other nationality) don't think of themselves as white, just Irish". This is a lie. I've heard old ex-soldiers who fought in the Congo in the 60's talk about the differences between whites and blacks without questioning their own whitness for a second. I've talked with a Polish guy who lives up the street from me about the differences between northern and southern Brazilians and why we both prefer the latter (guess what the key difference is). This Michael E. Jones bullshit just doesn't hold up.
