No, the existence of ethnicities is old but the concept of tying them to national borders is very young (modern era, and mostly 19th century and beyond) and the specific interpretation of ethonationalism here (ethno exclusionism within a set of borders) is even younger.

I have to work right now so can't work through all the examples listed by another poster below, but will try to come to this thread later. But if you look at e.g. historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity, and you will rarely even find people defining themselves by a singular ethnicity. Look at the e.g. Franks, the Germanic political entity that ended up defining modern France (and Holland and Germany and Belgium, etc.) A Germanic-speaking tribe that took over a Celtic (Gaulic) and Latin speaking territory, went to war with other "Germans", switched to speaking Latin in some places, but not all, and on the territory where they once ruled you now have a shattered mirror of dozens of ethnicities ("German", "Dutch", "Walloon", "French", "Alsatian", etc) in a nested fractal pattern depending on what lense you use, none of which correspond to any exact political border and which are fluid and changing from decade to decade.

My take: Ethnicity exists, is fluid, etc. Ethnonationalism is a tool, an ideological tool, mobilizing ethnicity for its own ends, using a specifically modern era mechanism ("nations", which are only ~200-300 years old) for the purposes of whoever is wielding it. E.g. the ambitions of an e.g. Milosevic type personality.

My ancestors are from both Alsace and Germany, so I take an interest in this topic.

I'm still a bit confused, but I think the takeaway is that I was conflating "any ethnic persecution" with "ethnonationalism". It sounds like the latter is much more specific ("we don't want Jews in our country" versus "this country belongs to Germans"?)?

I think it's normal to be confused, because the terms and history all have different interpretations and meanings.

What is German? What is Jew? What is "country"? And what is nation?

The answer to all those questions changes. Which is one of the reasons why I think it's important to be incredibly suspicious of any person who claims to have the answer, and to be able to state with certainty that this country belongs to Germany or this is the homeland of the Jews.

What are they really trying to accomplish?

Also, I'm super suspicious of anybody who says about any topic "it's always been this way" or "it's just common sense"... because a) they're usually wrong b) that's usually just obscuring a proposition or action they don't want to justify or defend using arguments so they appeal to nature/God/common-sense/natural-rightness instead.

> What is German? What is Jew? What is "country"? And what is nation?

I agree about ethnicities being mercurial; I'm not espousing "ethnicity" as a good way of organizing the world, but it's an established convention. WRT "country", here I mean it in a political/territorial sense--i.e., a territory under control of a sovereign government.

> Also, I'm super suspicious of anybody who says about any topic "it's always been this way" or "it's just common sense"

I'm not asserting anything. Ethnicity seems much too mercurial for me to understand well, and it seems like it's easy for people on either side of an argument to flex the definition to suit their ideological ends.

So it's very reasonable to point out that there's rarely such thing as 'pure ethnicity' and especially the 'lensing' issue of scale is insightful, and of course that some eras there's more evolution than that others ...

... but none of this upsets the fact that ethnicity is the 'primary weight' in the ultimate definition of borders, other than the borders which are artificial (i.e. political) which is why those tend to collapse.

i.e. " historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity" <- this is just not true.

Borders very clearly, 'mostly' ethnic, with huge caveats obviously, but those caveats don't change the underlying gravity of ethnicity.

Both a map of Europe today (though it's national) and even a map of the Roman Empire at any given time fairly strongly highlight this.

Roman borders don't help your point - they speak against it.

For a visual refresher here's a bunch of them [1].

Those are mostly ethnic divisions - some of which exist even today.

The fact that Greece has been 'occupied' for ~2200 years, by a whole variety of external powers, and still 'moslty' remains 'Greece' is evidence of this.

Despite your well meaning highlights of the Germanic invasion of Latin Gaul ... there is still a major delineating border between 'Gallia' and 'Germania' today [2].

Same for 'Hispania', 'Britannia', and 'Caledonia' (i.e. Scotland) and 'Hibernia' (i.e. Ireland).

It's an incredibly similar map 2000 years later.

Maybe one factor you could consider in your line of reasoning is the difference between political and ethnic boundaries.

When one group 'invades' another - that's a political change, not necessarily an ethnic one.

It becomes 'ethnic' when the invaders bring along with them considerable cultural power and especially 'bodies' i.e. if there's a lot of migration.

The official language of France in 2021 (and there are many) is French, which is Romantic, despite Frankish invasion.

Charlemagne was more or less a political phenomenon, less so cultural one.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=map+of+roman+empire&client=f...

[2] https://www.conformingtojesus.com/images/webpages/map_roman_...

You’re begging the question of why ethnicity implies borders. Borders are purely political objects. Without states, there are no borders. Labeling geographic areas as being primarily inhabited by descendants of a certain ethnicity does not at all imply that there is a well-defined point at which one ethnicity becomes another ethnicity in those areas. You can’t just ignore the existence of the nation-state in discussing borders. It’s the whole substance of the question.

I will note too that your argument here completely falls apart for America.

I think you're missing a lot of information here.

"Without states, there are no borders"

Well, the 'Nation State' is a modern concept, so no.

But if you were to say 'borders imply an administrative region of some kind' - then maybe.

But even without official, stated administrative organization, 'borders' still exist as the demarcation point between groups.

"You can’t just ignore the existence of the nation-state in discussing borders."

I absolutely did not, and I have no idea what you are referring to here.

"your argument here completely falls apart for America. "

No, it doesn't.

Start with the point that most 'states' (or administrative regions) in history, have been ethnocentric. From Egypt through Minoan, Greek, Roman etc..

Some more so than others. The US, no, Sweden, mostly.

> Well, the 'Nation State' is a modern concept, so no.

The nation state is. The state is not. The state is ancient.

> But even without official, stated administrative organization, 'borders' still exist as the demarcation point between groups.

But they’re not borders as such. Without administration, they shift constantly, and frequently are not clear at the edges.

> Start with the point that most 'states' (or administrative regions) in history, have been ethnocentric. From Egypt through Minoan, Greek, Roman etc..

Sure, but the phenomenon of the nation state is the part that you’re missing here. You can argue that historically, humans have grouped themselves ethnically. What you can’t argue is that this somehow makes ethnocentrism in the political environment of a nation state “natural,” as the concept of the nation and the state have been aligned for hundreds of years now.

> Some more so than others. The US, no, Sweden, mostly.

But this distinction basically proves this is not intrinsic to how humans function. The existence of variation is a pretty good argument against historical determinism.

" What you can’t argue is that this somehow makes ethnocentrism in the political environment of a nation state “natural,” as the concept of the nation and the state have been aligned for hundreds of years now."

??? Yes, I'm making that argument and it's really obvious.

The 'modern nation state' is not fundamentally different from historical 'states' in this regard.

'Gaul' was an administrative state, part of the Roman Empire, roughly ethnocentric. 'France' is now.

Borders bounce around, but they mostly fit between ethnic groups. It doesn't really matter whether we are dealing with the modern notion of state or not.

"Some more so than others. The US, no, Sweden, mostly.

But this distinction basically proves this is not intrinsic to how humans function."

It really doesn't.

That 'some nation states' do not form along ethnic boundaries in not way 'proves' that ethnicity is not a natural vector for state formation.

Even if 'most' nation states formed along some other means, it still wouldn't prove that ethnicity is not a vector of formation.

The fact a number of ethnocentric states exists proves that it's a vector of formation.

The fact that 'most states' are roughly ethnocentric proves my point.

It's fairly obvious and not very controversial.

I think it's just one of those issues that triggers some people who hate the fact that ethnicity is a fairly important part of our identity, and then they step out of their ability to apply rhetoric in a reasonable way i.e. a kind of bad faith argumentation. It's the only explanation I can fathom for why people would argue with something so obvious. Vietnam has Vietnamese and Korea has Koreans. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but unless there are literal Nazis running around, and there generally are not, then who cares. It's really not a problem in most places in the world.

The concept of a territory been defended by tribe against other tribes is as old as mammals.

Even if that's the case, that's not close to the same as a "nation" or even an "ethnicity."

Example: Germanic tribes that migrated out of the north in the 1st-5th centuries AD all spoke similar languages and had similar customs but were fluidly at war with each other and rarely if at all recognized any wider "German" identity. Some allied with the Romans, some joined confederations with the Huns, some groups seemed to be mixtures of Gauls and German despite different languages, etc. etc. This didn't befuddled the Romans at all. In the same era, Greeks (Hellenes) called themselves Romani, Goths ruled over formerly Roman territories and adopted Roman practices, while having Latin speaking subjects.

Stretch that out to the modern far right in Europe, on what basis is "European" any kind of "tribe?" What exactly are us "cultural Marxists" trying to impose on this poor persecuted "European identity"?

It does not stand up to critical inspection so it has to appeal to stuff like you just said "oh it's always been this way" -- who says? Define your terms, show me how they're the same, and prove it. Because appealing to that past and then conflating with the present with it to justify some action or policy has really serious consequences for humans

No. Consider France -- until Napoleon forged modern France, it contained dozens of languages and ethnicities. Then the modern world steam-rolled them into Frenchmen.

I don't think "the modern world" can be faulted. The French explicitly had a top-down campaign to forge a French national identity/ethnicity. But I take the broader point, I thought "ethnonationalism" was any kind of persecution of ethnic minorities.

What could be more modern than a top-down, homogenous education campaign?

Recent history, 19th and 20th century, yes. Older than that, no. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't French a minority language in France until the government decided to pursue a policy of francisation?

I think so. IMO, tolerance is a result of education, easily unlearned under pressure.

I think we could make a distinction between 'ethnocentrism' as identification with culture and being 'historically normative' at least somewhat, and 'ethnonationalism' which is the addition of the nation state, where it can possibly get more extremist under an operationally effective entity and codified/organized ideology aka Nazism. That's just my view.