>>19291150Europeans want to act like their individual national identities are the most legitimate way for a man to present himself, and simultaneously want to deny any higher category (international, imperial, continental) and lower category (regional, kingom, local) from existing, and they want to act as if identifying with a simple, easily visible physical feature like skin color is silly and nonsensical.
Why is it legitimate for me to call myself "British" but not "Mercian" or "Lancastrian?" Why can I not identify with Bavaria and consider the rest of Germany kaput? Why can I not think that Athens is my city and all others are not Greek? Skin color, the countenance, has been used to identify racial in group forever. Whenever you read about the ancient aristocracy, they always speak of how bright and light their skin is, referring to racial in group by skin, hair, and eye color. Europeans want to act like this plea is the desperate plea of a mutt, but if the physical features did not matter when it comes to identifying racial in-group, then why on earth would our ancestors in every nation write about them? Why would our ancestors write about how tall, bright, and blonde they were? I am sure our ancestors would consider too the concept of a nation-state silly, because they would wonder where all of that land is. The polis, the city, is the nation, not land on a map. And in creating a nation, you have to blend together peoples that may or may not be related or even wish to be together.
Tribal affiliation is still legitimate, but it's weird that Europeans want to pick and choose the affiliations they deem legitimate. Somehow, uniting all disparate kingdoms under a single "Portugal" is fine, but uniting all of Iberia is a no-no. Somehow, we can't unite France and Germany despite there being no real reason as to why not. Somehow, uniting Italy is fine, uniting many different kingdoms, each with their own traditions and cultures, is fine.
But Rome? Nooooo
