User talk:Wobble/archive8

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Contents 1 race 2 lineage 2.1 Apical ancestor 2.2 mt DNA lineages 2.3 ancestors 2.4 el Haj 2.5 race as lineage 2.6 el Haj and race 2.7 Templeton 2.8 Clustering 2.9 race as lineage is bad 2.10 Proposals 3 Out of the blue... 4 Briton 5 ? 6 Wikipedia Weekly Episode 20 7 When you get back, enjoy! 8 Briton ... 9 "Related groups" on the Welsh people article.

[edit] race

You wrote, "I don't mean to criticise you, and if you have not confused these issues then fair enough, but it does seem to me that this is the case. Alun 13:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)"

Is this true, that you do not mean to criticize me? I ask because it seems that you criticize me every chance you have - assuming that everything I do is in bad faith, and lying (at least twice) about what I have said. Maybe I have confused issues, but why do you think this is not the case? Also, why do you think calling me arrogant and pompous and clueless? I have tried a number of times to explain my position to you and every time I feel you have (1) entirely ignored what I was saying and (2) went on to be utterly dismissive not only of anything I had to say but of the possibility I might ever have anything meaningful to say. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

But you have reverted every single edit I have made so of course I get angry. You have dismissed every single edit I have made, so yes, you have made me extremely angry, but I admit I was wrong to get personal, and I apologise for it. But let's be fair, you have been far from assuming good faith. Alun 13:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Our comments just crossed. I am glad and I appreciate what you wrote on my talk page and I hope this augurs well for more productive work on the race article. I will start by admiting that I have assumed bad faith on your part but I think only to a limited extent but I want to be as open and honest as I can right now: I think that you believe that all biologists have only one view of race, namely as a subspecies, and that you will keep any other view out of the article. This is the "POV" I assume you are pushing. If I am wrong, I do apologize.

Allow me to respond to some specific points you raise and let's see if we can take it from there.

• I would say that I think your understanding of genetics is not good,

I think you are being unfair to me. I will not go into detail about my background because I believe the main difference between Wikipedia and other encyclopedias I have contributed to is that Wikipedia is by design written by non-experts. It is Wikipedia's policies, and not editors' credentials, for better or worse, that determine Wikipedia's qualities. That said I am sure that you know more about genetics than I do. But please take me in good faith: I do not just make stuff up, when i add to the Race article it is only - only - after having read an article in a peer-reviewed journal.

and that you have certainly made claims for certain research that are simply not supported by this research.

That may be true and I hope that more civil discussion on the talk page can remedy that. But to be fair, it seems that the same goes for you.

I accept that you are acting in good faith, and I accept that I have not always assumed good faith on your part. I appologise for this, there is no excuse for my behaviour. I think I have felt under siege recently on this article, and have therefore adopted a siege mentality, but I accept that this is no excuse for not assuming good faith and I'm sorry for the way I have posted on the talk page. I don't think I have made claims that are not supported by reliable sources, but of course I can't be absolutely sure. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Before I go on, I want to emphasize something that I think is essential to any possible understanding between us. (1) I am not concerned with "the truth," only with what people have claimed to be true, and (2) I do not assume that all biologists agree about everything, I assume that there are certain areas where biologists are in conflict or at least have differing views. Frankly, it seems to me that you do not share these two assumptions and that this is (in my perception) the reason we keep clashing.

(1) When I talk about the truth, I mean "reporting what authors have themselves claimed in a truthful manner." I think much of the sections dealing with genetics are confused, and often they do not seem to give an accurate account of the scientists conclusions. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

(2) I know biologists do not share the same assumptions, but certain biological consepts are not in dispute. More on this later. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

An example:

• A lineage is a discrete population that is directly descended from the same ancestral population but not from any other ancestral population." and that "The image in the (lineage) article is misleading because it implies that the differences between the chimp/human lineages is equivalent to the differences between the various human "lineages". The reason it is misleading is because there was a speciation event between the human and chimp lineages that prevented gene flow between the lineages. These are lineages because they are discrete. When one considered humans no such barrier to gene flow exist, but the image still portrays the "African", "Caucasian" etc branches of the tree as discrete, by rights there should be an indication of gene flow between these human populations because they are not actually lineages.

When biologists use the concept of "lineage" to mean "population below the species level" or to mean "race" they are usually referring to such discrete populations, as per Templeton's definition. This is not the only way that biologists use the term "lineage". Maybe I made it sound as if this were the only biological use of the term lineage, it is not. But this is the only one I know of that is used when "lineage" is used to mean "race". Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Note: I never said that "it is wrong to claim that some biologists hold this view." My only argument was that "some biologists hold a different view." I have read the article by Cann et. al very carefully and they most definitely use the word "lineage" to refer to refer to nondiscrete populatons that are directly descended from the same ancestral population and from other populations. It really is clear in the article. Now, maybe you now accept that at least some biologists use lineage this way ... from your comment on the talk page, it seems so although you never once said "Okay, you are right about that, but here is where you are still wrong." Or it may be that you still reject this view. But don't you see that by our NPOV policy at the very least you have to say "some biologists now use the word "lineage" this way, although others reject that usage?"

Cann is discussing mtDNA lineages, not human population lineages. I have provided a discussion on the talk page of the "race" article about "lineage" as it applies to specific molecules. This term only applies to the way molecules like Y chromosomes and mtDNA change over time, mutations accumulate in these molecules over time, and therefore they form molecular lineages. This is not the same concept as lineages of whole populations of organisms. For example Cann says "Take, as an example, mtDNA type 49, a lineage whose nearest relative is not in New Guinea, but in Asia (type 50)", she is refering to a specific mtDNA lineage called type49. mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA do form molecular lineages, but they are not associated with the concept of "race as lineage". The section in the article is dealing with "race as lineage" so I think we need to discuss this concept, and not the different concept of molecular lineages. Indeed Cann is actually saying that the maternal origins of these human populations are diverse, this is something seen for mtDNA and more recently for Y chromosome DNA, we find that the lineages for these molecules do not conform to any traditional concepts of "race", these molecular lineages cut accross the all "traditional ideas of race". As Keita et al. say in their paper "Conceptualising human variation"

Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genealogies are especially interesting because they demonstrate the lack of concordance of lineages with morphology and facilitate a phylogenetic analysis. Individuals with the same morphology do not necessarily cluster with each other by lineage, and a given lineage does not include only individuals with the same trait complex (or 'racial type')

In this instance they are referring to Y chrromosome and mtDNA lineages, and not "race as lineage". Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Sometimes you have claimed that other editors have made the edits you are defending, this does not explain why you feel that the previous editor's work is worth defending.

It is only because I assume good faith. I assume that when some other editor said that there is this view of race as lineages, s/he was being sincere. So I went out to look for peer-reviewed articles on lineage and race and indeed I found several. Cann talks about lineages, not races (yes, i admit that Cann et al do not themselves identify these lineages as races - and I admit the language I originally used in the article needs to be clarified), and talks about them not in the way you defined lineages in the talk page but in the sense of people having one common maternal ancestor. And I found articles in other peer-reviewed journales (e.g. Palmie and Abu el haj) that explicitly talk about race and lineage.

Of course sometimes people discuss mtDNA lineages, this is a different sort of "lineage" to "discrete population descended from a common and isolated population", which is Templeton's definition. Mt DNA lineages are groups of people who are the direct descendants of a particular ancestral female, but people carrying different mtDNA lineages are all descended from the same ancestral female through the maternal line(age). For example in the example I have provided here, the mtDNA shows several lineages, haplogroup 5 (Hg5) is part of a lineages that goes Hg1→Hg2→Hg5, but Hg3 is part of a lineage that goes Hg1→Hg2→Hg3. It is clear that Hg3 and Hg5 share a common female ancestor in Hg2, but they still form different lineages. Everyone in Hg5 carries the mut d mutation, this will have arisen in the founder female of this haplogroup, those in Hg3 do not carry this mutation, they have a different mutation called mut b. I cannot get full access to the Abu el Haj paper, but I did read the first page, she does not mention lineage in that part of her comment, she only mentions "genetic ancestry". She does mention that genetics may redefine our concepts of "race", by which I suppose she means that we are all going to find out that we are all much more similar to each other than anyone might imagine. I think it is important to draw the distinction between the concept of "race as lineage", which is just one of many different ways to define variation on a level below that of species, and molecular lineages such as mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages. I cannot stress enough that these are not synonymous concepts. This is not to say that mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages cannot tell us something about genetic diversity and how it is structured in the human population. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a look at el Haj's homepage.[1] Here she states

My research is concerned most generally with the relationship between scientific knowledge and the making of social imaginations and political orders. I have sought to specify the ways in which particular historical sciences generate facts and to understand how those facts circulate in wider social worlds, helping to fashion the cultural understandings, political possibilities and �common-sense� assumptions that have been central to making of particular colonial regimes, national cultures and diasporic identities. My current research analyzes the field of genetic anthropology by focusing on research first, projects that seek to reconstruct the origins and migrations of specific population groups and second, for-profit companies that offer "genetic ancestry testing" (to various "populations") on the other. Most generally, I am interested in the conceptions of race, diaspora and kinship that this work makes possible, the refiguration of nature "and of its relationship to culture" that it entails, and the political demands for "recognition" or "redress" that are made on its evidentiary terrain.

I would infer from this that she is interested in how people who have had Y chromosome or mtDNA testing have changes the way they identify. For example I know I am a member of the Y chromosome haplogroup I1a (which came as something of a shock, I had expected to be the more common R1b), is el Haj not infering that people who know their haplogroup are starting to identify more with others who share their haplogroup? Is she in fact saying that knowing one's mtDNA or Y chromosomal lineage is changing how people identify and who they identify with? So is she in fact saying that DNA research may fundamentally change the way we understand the concepts of kinship and descent? If she is saying this then I agree this is something that should be included in the article. But let's not confuse this with any different concept of "race as lineage". We need to make it clear that this is about identity and how knowledge of ancestry can modify how we see ourselves and our relationships with others around us. When we discuss the idea of "race as lineage" we need to separate it from the idea of "race as mtDNA lineage" or "race as Y chromosome lineage", indeed I would say that el Haj is not saying that these mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages are defining "races" but are defining new concepts of identity, and therefore new "social groups". This is not to say that the mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages don't have anything to say about "racial" ideas, but generally Y chromosomes and mtDNA tend not to support "traditional concepts of Race" due to the way they are geographically distributed. Alun 06:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

This leads me to another point I think is essential to any understanding between us: NPOV also requires us to include minority or contested views. For example, although Abu el-Haj seems to be defending the identification of race with lineage, Palmie is critical of it - and I have found others who are critical of it. Obviously you know of a host of literature that is inconsistent with this association of race and lineage, and perhaps it is even directly critical of those who would associate races and lineages. But for me, this is not a reason to exclude from the article the idea that race can be defined as a lineage. To be clear, I say this not because I think this is a correct or even defensible position. I say this because it is a position, period. Indeed, there is so much criticism of this position that I think it is fair to assume that since people are criticising the view, the view exists.

I have no problem with the concept of defining subspecies as "lineages", which is what Templeton has done in his paper of 1998. My problem is that much of the text in the section "race as lineage" does not correspond to Templeton's definition of "race as lineage", and does not seem to address this concept at all. It is a perfectly valid concept, but it has no bearing on mtDNA or Y chromosomal lineages, which are molecular lineages, and not population lineages. My biggest problem with the section is the inclusion of the "clustering" analyses done by Tang and Rosenberg. The whole section discusses population structure as if this were synonymous with "race as lineage" but does not show that this is a valid assumption and neither Tang nor Rosenberg make this claim. Indeed the figure associated with the section from Rosenberg's 2002 paper used to claim "This kind of analysis forms the basis for the lineage definition of race" but this is not the conclusion of Tang or Rosenberg, it seems to be the conclusion of RIK alone. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• I have been very frustrated by the fact that you revert every single edit I make, even though you seem not to understand the genetics very well.

I sincerely to not believe I have reverted every edit you have made, although I may be wrong.

Well no you haven't, but what you haven't reverted Ramdrake has reverted, actually I think he has reverted the vast majority of my edits, but I don't know why. Alun 18:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

What I am conscious of is reverting your edits that ammounted to ridding the article of the section on race as lineage, for the reasons I provide above. I know I gut one sentence on when humans radiated out of Africa and I did not provide an explanation but I hope it is not too late to tell you it was not because I thought you were violating NPOV or NOR. I deleted it only because there is still some contention about when the radiation actually occured and I didn't see how one positing one specific window was necessary for the article. I had nothing against the sentence as such, I was just looking to simplify the prose and it seemed unnecessary. Do you disagree? Okay, but I will assume you disagree in good faith. i really did not mean to attack you personally when i deleted it, frankly, i did not know at the time you had written it.

I don't want to rid the article of any section on "race as lineage", I want the article to accurately discuss this concept. Currently the article just gives a discussion of genetics, it does not properly explain what the concept of "race as lineage" is, nor does it explain how we would expect human variation to be globally patterned if we were to accept this definition. This is a definition based on biology, it is not a definition based on human social constructs. As such it needs to be applicable to all classifications on the subspecific level. Really "race as lineage" is synonymous with "subspecies as lineage" if we use Templeton's definition, though there are many alternative concepts of "subspecies" as well. The only definition we have so far for "race as lineage" is from Templeton, and this is not discussed at all in the section. I would like the section to discuss this concept. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It is disheartening to be excluded from contributing to this article apparently because I simply want to express the science in a more accurate way.

And i do not want to exclude someone who is knowledgable (and I acknowledge that you are). But do you really not understand why it seems to me that you are pushing one point of view? You seem to have the view that since you believe that the science behind any claim that race=lineage is bad, that it should be removed from the article - when, on the contrary, what we should do is provide the view that race = lineage and then provide the criticisms (and please believe me I would have no objection to your adding summaries of articles that are critical of the race=lineage view). Also it seems to me that you hold the view that the only acceptable scientific view of race is as subspecies. I agree that many biologists use the term "subspecees" and some have used this to conceptualize race and I would never exclude this view from the article. But it is not the only view and it seems to me that you want to excludde other views and assert that this is the only plausible view, which violates our NPOV policy. This is, at least consciously, my only objection to any of your edits.

race=lineage is bad: I don't have any such belief. I have consistently stated that my problem is that in my view the section of the article does not actually address the concept of "race as lineage" at all. The concept of "race as lineage" is just a concept, it is neither bad nor good. But if we are going to discuss "race as lineage" then let us discuss it properly, let us provide Templeton's definition and discuss how it applies to the biological world and to the human population in particular. Currently the article discusses mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages, which are molecular lineages and are not relevant to "race as lineage", and it discusses clustering by citing the works of Tang and Rosenberg. My problem is that none of this discussion is relevant to the concept of "race as lineage" because the clustering work makes no claim to have provided evidence that their clusters represent discrete lineages, and the mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages are not the same as population lineages, such as "race" would be. I assume that you accept that a "race" is usually at least considered a population of organisms and not a population of molecules? Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• I really don't understand why you assume that every edit I make is biased or incorrect, your only "explanations" have been that my edits do not give a neutral point of view, but the sections in the article that cover genetics are generally poor and often do not actually represent the conclusions of the scientists they are citing. I still can see no evidence that any of the section titled "Race as lineage" includes anything other than OR. Take a look at the definition of "race as lineage" that occurs later on in the article,

  "A subspecies (race) is a distinct evolutionary lineage within a species. This definition requires that a subspecies be genetically differentiated due to barriers to genetic exchange that have persisted for long periods of time; that is, the subspecies must have historical continuity in addition to current genetic differentiation."

What can I do? Cann et al talk about lineages by which they mean groups of people who share a female ancestor traced through mtDNA; their use of lineage does not require an absense of geneflow with other populations (indeed they admit that the lineage is not isolated - but they continue to call them lineages, they really do, I swear!!!) and Palmie and Abu el-Haj write about the increasing use of these lineages as ways of identifying and talking about races. These are people publishing in major peer-reviewed journals and I want to include their research in the article. I am not saying it is the only view of race. I am not saying it is the best view of race. I am not even saying it is correct. I am just saying that there are people in verifiable source who talk about this view. Why is this so terrible? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Cann's paper does mean groups of people who share a female ancestor traced through mtDNA, but it is the mtDNA molecules that form the lineages. These groups of people that share these common female ancestors may be separated by very large distances, they certainly do not represent "race as lineage", indeed sharing a common matrilinear (or patrilinear) ancestor is not the same as being part of the same lineage. Molecular lineages are not synonymous with "race as lineage", every mtDNA haplogroup is not a new "race" and the lineages represent sequences of changes to the molecule in a linear fashion, hence they are lineages. I can't comment on what Abu el-Haj says because I cannot get access to her work, but make sure that when she discusses lineage she actually means "race" as lineage and is not using some other meaning. As far I as can see the idea of "race as lineage" is a very specific definition that was coined by Templeton in 1998 and we have his definition in the article. I think we are getting sidetracked by different uses of the word lineage with very different meanings. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It was my intention to write this in a non-insulting, non-dismissive way - if I failed, please let me know. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

To recap my problems are very specific.

1. I do not have a problem with the concept of "race as lineage", I merely want it to discuss this concept as it is defined in the article by Templeton. If el Haj or others have a different concept of "race as lineage" then I'd like for us to include these definitions of "race as lineage" as well, so we can discuss different ideas of "race as lineage". But I'm not convinced that she is not using the word "lineage" in a different context, for example as molecular lineages. She may be discussing new concepts of identity that are bourne from knowledge of ancestry. In his book "Blood of the Isles", Bryan Sykes discusses how people who have been mtDNA tested by his commercial laboratory and been found to belong to the same haplogroup have parties together because they see this as some sort of "bond", even thought these people may not actually share very much ancestry. Nadia Abu el Haj does not use the term lineage in the sections of the paper I can see, she simply refers to genetic ancestry testing. Be that as it may, mtDNA and Y chromosome analysis can tell us something about genetics and may have something to say about how genetic diversity is distributed, I don't think this is synonymous with claiming that mtDNA or Y chromosome lineages represent "races", and I don't think any reputable scientist would claim this, so I'm assuming there is some confusion here (an I'm happy to accept that the confusion may be on my part).
2. I do not think any evidence is provided that Tang and Rosenberg's work on genetic clustering claims to support the concept that humans represent "discrete racial lineages" or that they represent "non-discrete racial lineages". Indeed I am familiar with both of these papers and I don't think either defines "race as lineage" in either of the papers, indeed I think in the Tang paper they do not attempt to define "race" at all, but merely use "self defined race/ethnicity".
3. Let's not get confused between different uses of the term "lineage". Genetic lineages only occur in mtDNA and Y chromosomes, this is due to the unusual way these molecules are inherited. Lineages in these molecules refer to the accumulation of mutations over time, with whole series of molecules gradually accumulating mutations over time, these series of molecules are called lineages, many closely related molecules are in different lineages.
4. Let's not conflate biology and cultural anthropology. Apical ancestor is not a biological term and has little meaning in the context of hereditary and genetics.

OK I think I've covered most of the problems as I see them. All the best. Alun 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] lineage

I think it will get too confusing if we keep embedding responses. Your recent comments are very helpful and I hope these bring us closer to a compromise that both of us feel will improve the article.

[edit] Apical ancestor

• Apical ancestor is not a biological term and has little meaning in the context of hereditary and genetics.

Okay, fine - but apical just means at the apex. You wrote, "people carrying different mtDNA lineages are all descended from the same ancestral female through the maternal line(age)." What do you call the ancestral female through which all people are descended? I just want to know the correct terminology

Apical may mean at the apex, but the term "Apical ancestor" has a specific meaning in anthropology. Usually this is just called a common ancestor, but it is ecessary to specify thet this is a common ancestor in the maternal or paternal lineage as we all share much more recentl common ancestors through other lineages. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mt DNA lineages

• Mt DNA lineages are groups of people who are the direct descendants of a particular ancestral female,

Okay, if we do not call the particular ancestral female "apical," is there another less wordy but acceptable to biologists way of calling her? Also, please note that when I wrote this in the article, you and POM in effect said I was speaking nonsense. What you could have said is that what I wrote was not clear enough. I would have had no problem with that plus a constructive suggestion for alternate phrasing. Instead you insulted me and dismissed me out of hand. By the way, I want to reiterate how much I appreciate your reaching out to me now, and I sincerely hope that my responses are respectful and constructive.

We do need to be careful how things are stated, not doing this can lead to confusion. What you wrote previously was confusing. I think we need to make the distinction between lineage and haplogroup, often you seem to use lineage when you mean haplogroup. A mtDNA or Y chromosome haplogroup comprises of all of those people who share a common mutation derived from a specific matrilineal or patrilineal ancestor. A lineage is the sequence of mutations that occured to that molecule, it does not represent a haplogroup but rather a series of haplogroups. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that what I wrote was confusing. I now see that the distinction between evolutionary lineage and molecular lineage is crucial. I think I understand the difference between lineage and haplogroup. I know that the literature I have looked at e.g. Cann et. al. and Johnson et. al. make the distinction. However, from what I understand of Palmie and Abu el Haj - i.e. the ones who are arguing that many people, including some biologists who are proponents of commercial PGH services, but mostly non-scientists consumers of this knowledge - both mtDNA lineages and haplotypes are being used to link biological descent and ethnicity. Here is an example of the data cultural anthropologists are trying to make sense of: a consumer of a commercial PGH service sends in a sample of DNA which is analyzed by molecular biologists and gets the following report:

"African DNA Ancestry Report"

The subject's likely haplotype L2 is associated with the so-called Bantu expansion from West and Central sub-Saharan Africa east and south, dated 2,000-4,000 years ago .... Between the 15th and 19th centuries C.E, the Atlantic slave trade resulted in the forced movement of approximately 13 million people from Africa, mainly to the Americas. Only approximately 11 million survived the passage and many more died in the early years of captivity. Many of these slaves were traded to the West African Cape Verde ports of embarkation through Portuguese and Arab middlemen and came from as far sough as Angola. Among the African tribal groups, all Bantu-speaking, in which L2 is common are: Hausa, Kanuri, Fulfe, Songhai, Malunjin (Angola), Yoruba, Senegalese, Serer and Wolof.

Now, a careful biologist, historian, and anthropologist reading at this may find it hard to object to any one sentence. But the report is telling a story that connects a haplotype with a language and a group of tribes. I know you know a lot as a biologist; now I will share with your something that is fundamental to modern anthropology: the claim, shared by almost all contemporary anthropologists, that biology/inherited traits, language, and culture are conceptually or ontologically independent (meaning, there could well be specific linkages, but they are contingent and historical) and no one can be reduced to the other. I think Palmie and Abu el Haj are arguing that in these kinds of reports, new advances in molecular genetics are being used to create or confirm stories have about, as you say, social identities. Palmie and Abu el Haj go further and specify that these are racial identities because they link biological and cultural identities. Palmie and Rotimi are very critical of this use of molecular genetics - I added their views to the article several days ago - and it sounds like you believe that most careful molecular biologists would be critical too. But Palmie is arguing that through these kinds of reports, and other documents (Spencer Wells' has a popular book in which he seldom if ever uses the word race, or uses the word only to criticize the notion that it is biologically valid for talking about human differences ... but then he goes on to talk about mtDNA lineages and haplotypes that are strongly associated with specific cultures speaking specific languages). Perhaps it is unfair for an anthropologist to say that this is an example of a biologist who is using molecular genetics to forward a new understanding of race. But LOTS of anthropologists see people who use commercial PGH services, and read Wells's books, and conclude that races are real. Obviously we need to distinguish between scince and how science is used, and also distinguish between different groups of people who use science different ways. I hope that as you and I continue this dialogue we figure out a way to represent the science accurately but also that represents the ways cultural assumptions concerning race sometimes bias actual scientific research (as when molecular biologists base their analysis on a stratified sample of genetic material taken by people who self-identify as being from different races, or who are initially categorized as descended from ancestors from different continents, rather than a large random sample) and oftn bias the way people interpret the results of scientific research. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't argue with any of this. Indeed I agree with this analysis, it is spot on. When I got my Y chromosome genotyped I was told that I1a is the "Anglo-Saxon" type. This conjures up images of mass invasions of Germanic peoples into England some time in the sub-Roman period. But it's a myth. Another paper "A Y chromosome census of the British Isles" assumes that all haplogroup I British people are the patrilineal descendants of "Anglo-Saxons" or "Danes" (vikings). This assumption is made for the reason that haplogroup I is common in northern Germany, Denmark and southern Norway. But it's fallacious to assume that haplogroup I exists on the Island of Great Britain only because of "Anglo-Saxons" or "Vikings". It also implies that somehow I am "more" Anglo-Saxon than anything else, but for all I know the bulk of my ancestry could be from a completely different part of the British Isles. I inherit my Y chromosome from only a single ancestor per generation, it tells me very little about the vast majority of my ancestors. Y chromosomes and mtDNA are important because they are transmitted is a special way, they can tell us much about migrations and about single lines of descent, but in many ways the strengths of these molecules is also their downfall. Their mode of transmission tells us a great deal about some things, but it ommits a great deal more about our ancestors. I agree with you that these sorts of analyese can give a false sense of differentiation between groups of people, and I think that scientists are far too eager to link certain haplogroups with specific cultures on the most spurious of evidence. Genomic tests will rectify this sort of thing to a certain extent. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I am glad that we agree on this because this may be the point most important to me , i.e. this is the material I think must be included in the article, and while the section I had been fighting for, "race as lineage," may be an inappropriate way to handle these issues, if we both agree that these issues need to be included in the article, we should be able to come up with a good way to do so. I am glad we both agree this is happening, and the fact that it is problematic, far from being a reason to keep it off the race page, is I think a reason to address it squarely. This really has been my intention all along, although I admit in the process I made mistakes both in editing content and in discussing it with you. My one concern is this: NPOV means that we editors cannotput in our own views. Both of us agree that some scientists are forwarding fallacious, specious, nonsensical (to use your words) claims or at least implying them. The problem is, we cannot say that these analyses, claims, suggestions are false spurious or nonsensical just because we believe them. We need to find verifiable sources that make these arguments. I think Palmie does, and Rotini and perhaps you know others. I also think that it is interesting that credentialed scientists are so eager to make analyses that mislead people and I think an effective article will make it clear why this is so tempting to them, why at least some scientists think what they are doing is okay. As long as we still agree, the only issue I think left is how to deal with this in the context of the article. I made two suggestions, below - one is relatively conservative in that it does not involve any real reorganization of the article; the other is more radical in that it involves major reorganization. I really am happy to go either way, and if you are inclined one way, I am willing to try it out. We can always create a mirror article as a "sandbox" subpage of your page or mine, work on it, and then ask others e.g. POM, Ramdrake, Paul Barlow (and by the way, the latter two really are not dispite what you may have thought in the past buddies of mine!) and Muntuwanda what they think ... Slrubenstein | Talk 13:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ancestors

• but people carrying different mtDNA lineages are all descended from the same ancestral female through the maternal line(age).

I understand that Cann argues this point specifically. Do I understand correctly that this is in effect equivalent to saying all humans have a common ancestor? The reason I ask is because I think the article already says this. I think the clarification that you bring up here (I mean, above) is that Cann et. al. are talking about MtDNA lineages, not human lineages. I wish you had just said that a few days ago on the talk page, rather than insulting me (if you did, well, i apologize for having missed it). I appreciate the clarification. If you had proposed an edit that explained the difference between an evolutionary lineage and an mtDNA lineage, I would not have objected - but you just seemed to put up a wall at the inclusion of discussion of any other kind of biological lineage. To repeat something I wrote earlier: I acknowledge that Cann et. al. do not identify these lineages with races. However, some people are. And others are criticizing those who are. Can't we figure out an effective way to include all three positions in the article?

All humans share a much more recent common ancestor than their matrilineal or patrilineal common ancestor. Ancestry through a single line of descent is only a tiny fraction of our total ancestry. If we want to calculate how long ago we share a common ancestor through the maternal line, then we need to go back much further than if we just want to calculate how long ago we share any common ancestor. So it's not exactly the same as saying that all humans share the same common ancestor. It's more like saying that all mtDNA and Y chromosome haplogroups trace back to a common maternal or paternal ancestral haplogroup. In the case of mtDNA diversity is lost about 200,000 years ago, for Y chromosomes it is about 70,000 years ago. These both indicate common ancestors for all extant humans, they must be common ancestors to us all because we all carry modifications to the non-recombining DNA we have inherrited from them. This discussion should not only discuss mtDNA, Y chromosome analysis should also be provided. We should not imply that these are the only people from these periods that we are descended from. Other men and women lived at those times, and we are all descended from all of those men and women, it's just that all extant mtDNA molecules happen to derive from a single molecule from this time (200,000 ya), no other mtDNA molecules survived due to genetic drift. The same applies to Y chromosomes, all extant Y chromosomes are descended from a single ancestral Y chromosome that existed about 70,000 years ago. We have all inherited DNA for other people from 200,000 years ago and 70,000 ya, we just have not inherited their mtDNA or Y chromosomes. (2)

I fully agree, honest. BUT there are people today who talk about the findings of molecular genetics who distort this science or who downplay its limitations in order to claim that information from mtDNA or Y chomosomes help people identify themselves racially. And we have to be honest about that too. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

You are quite right. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] el Haj

• I cannot get full access to the Abu el Haj paper, but I did read the first page, she does not mention lineage in that part of her comment, she only mentions "genetic ancestry".

This is where we find out whether you are taking me in good faith or not. I read the article. I understood it. She does not use the word "lineage" but I do not believe this means I have violated NOR. While she does not use the word, she is clearly referring to the concept and the research behind it. She makes it clear she is talking about research in molecular genetics that establishes maternal "lines" (she does use this word) through mtDNA analysis and paternal "lines" through Y chromosome analysis. I had better clarify too that Abu el Haj is not presenting her own interpretation of Cann when she argues that mtDNA lineages and Y chromasome haplotypes are leading to a new understanding of race; she is analyzing how others have made use of research by Cann and others. Whether you believe me or not depends on whether you accept what I say in good faith. NB this does not mean you have to accept that I am communicating it as clearly as one could!!

OK, I accept that she is discussing how knowledge of one's Y chromosome and mtDNA haplogroup can change the way a person identifies. I suspected that this was the case. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• She does mention that genetics may redefine our concepts of "race", by which I suppose she means that we are all going to find out that we are all much more similar to each other than anyone might imagine.

No, that is not what she is saying. She is saying she is saying that people are using this to test whether x is really a Jew or y is really black or z is really white. She is also saying that what people mean by "black" "white" and "Jew" is not quite what people meant when they talked about race fifty or a hundred years ago. She is further arguing that what people now mean is evidence of a new understanding of race (one I do not think she claims is shared by most biologists, although she and Palmie seem to think that some biologists, specifically proponents of commercial PGH services, are encouraging this new understanding of race, minimally by relating haplotypes to specific ethnic groups).

Ok, this sort of thing is certainly interesting and relevant. Thanks for the summary. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] race as lineage

• I think it is important to draw the distinction between the concept of "race as lineage", which is just one of many different ways to define variation on a level below that of species, and molecular lineages such as mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages.

I agree with you that we need to explain the difference between evolutionary lineages and mtDNA lineages. I have found peer-reviewed articles that argue that using the first definition for race, human races do not exist, and I have added those claims with citations to the article. But Abu el Haj and others are claiming that people are using molecular lineages to talk about race. As I said, there are others who criticize this move and I have actually added the criticisms into the article (at the same time that I added the claims about race and lineage, meaning molecular lineage).

Not just mtDNA haplotypes, but also Y chromosomes as well. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• But this is the only one I know of that is used when "lineage" is used to mean "race".

I understand that. And I am not telling you that no one uses the word lineage in the sense you do. But I am telling you that there is another sense in which people use lineage in relation to race. Here again we get to good faith: I have always taken your claims that lineage means x in good faith i.e. I assumed you were right. I rejected only your claim that this is the only way people use lineages in relation to race. I took you on good faith, you have to take me on good faith too and acknowledge that perhaps I know of some stuff going on that you do not (and I admit I may not understand it perfectly). My saying this is not a personal insult to you.

Well I think we need to distinguish between when a biologist uses the idea of lineage to mean "race", such as Templeton's definition, and when a lay person discusses "lineage" when they mean haplogroup. People with very different mtDNA can be part of the same lineage, remember the lineage is all molecules existing in a linear sequence of mutational events. To clarify, part of a Y chromosome lineage is R→R1→R1b. At some stage a man carrying a haplogroup R Y chromosome had a child who's Y chromosome had a single mutational difference to his fathers, this means that he was the founder of the R1 haplogroup. At some point later a member of the R1 haplogroup had a son who also had a mutation, he founded the R1b haplogroup. R→R1→R1b is a lineage, those members of haplogroup R are part of the same lineage as those members of haplogroup R1b. Members of haplogroup R are also members of the same lineage as men from haplogroup R1a. Members of haplogroup R1a are not members of the same lineage as members of haplogroup R1b.[2] Let's be clear about whether we are discussing lineage or haplogroup membership. From the point of view of lineage, then the ancestral Y chromosome or mtDNA type is a member of all lineages. Alun 03:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

You are making two points, if I follow you: (1) we need to distinguish between lineage versus haplogroup membership. I agree completley, but we also need to be on the lookout for cases where the two are muddled (not by me! but perhaps by journalists and other lay-people) and (2) we have to distinghish between biologists' views and laypersons' views. Again, I agree - but I wonder whether there is a point of convergence - specifically commercial PGH services - where biologists and laypeople interact and some biologists may be actively encouraging misconceptions or doing nothing to correct misperceptions when they have the opportunity. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you are correct. Some biologists appear to be far too ready to associate certain haplogroups or lineages with certain historical or archaeological cultures, even on the most circumstantial evidence. I find this dishonest, Y chromosome and mtDNA haplogroups testing tell us only a tiny fraction of our ancestry and descent. I think a lot of this has to do with promoting ancestry tests. These days it is becoming more common for people to get genomic tests, these are more sophisticated (though they do not tell us much about migrations etc) in some respects. For example a genomic test can be more nuanced about the geographic origins of a person. It may be able to tell a person that they have a certain proportion of ancestry from a certain continent etc. As these tests get more sophisticated it may be possible to tell a person the proportion of their ancestry from very localised geographic regions, currently I think the level of deffinition is no greater than that of continent, for example 10% African, 10% European, 50% Native American, 30% East Asian, that sort of thing. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

whether in one section or in two sections (or even three?) I think we need (1) to explain the science that makes this possible (i.e. recent advances in molecular genetics especially involving the genome), (2) provide an accurate account of those biologists who are "far too ready to asasociate certain haplogroups or lineages with certain historical or archaeological cultures, even on the most circumstantial evidence" and, I would add, how this leaves certain popular assumptions about race unquestioned or even reenforces them, and (3) critical views, from a variety of approaches e.g. cultural anthropologists, physical anthropologists (mostly population geneticists) and evolutionary biologists (mostly molecular geneticists). Do we agree on this? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] el Haj and race

• I would infer from this that she is interested in how people who have had Y chromosome or mtDNA testing have changes the way they identify. For example I know I am a member of the Y chromosome haplogroup I1a (which came as something of a shock, I had expected to be the more common R1b), is el Haj not infering that people who know their haplogroup are starting to identify more with others who share their haplogroup? Is she in fact saying that knowing one's mtDNA or Y chromosomal lineage is changing how people identify and who they identify with? So is she in fact saying that DNA research may fundamentally change the way we understand the concepts of kinship and descent?

YES! I would only add, after kinship and descent, the word "race" for two reasons. First, she herself uses the race and calls attention to its changing meaning. Second, whe is using the words descent and kinship in a specific way namely how people in the West see descent and kinship as elements of race, i.e. biological relatedness (i.e. she is not using the words "kinship" and "descent" in their strictly anthropological sense, where they have to do with jural rights and obligations and the access to and inheritance of property).

OK, if she discussed "race" in this context then it is clearly relevant. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

• indeed I would say that el Haj is not saying that these mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages are defining "races" but are defining new concepts of identity, and therefore new "social groups". This is not to say that the mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages don't have anything to say about "racial" ideas, but generally Y chromosomes and mtDNA tend not to support "traditional concepts of Race" due to the way they are geographically distributed.

Here we get to the crucial issues and I think perhaps some really constructive discussion between the two of us. (1) I already agree with you that "generally Y chromosomes and mtDNA tend not to support "traditional concepts of Race"" and agree we need to make this clear in the article. (2)"I would say that el Haj is not saying that these mtDNA and Y chromosomal lineages are defining "races" but are defining new concepts of identity, and therefore new "social groups"." I am not so sure about this. I think you are looking for something more nuanced than what I wrote in the article, and I am all for working on it togetehr or back and forth to make it more nuanced. A social scientist would not necessarily use the word "social group" in this context, as it has a precise meaning. I think you are right about using molecular lineages to define new concepts of identity. But Palmie (who is critical) and Abu el Haj (who is sympathetic) both agree that this new identity uses the language of race, specifically and explicitly. You may say, "Cann et. al. would not support this" and I would agree with you 100%. You may say "Well, this is not what the word "race" meant twenty years ago" and again I would agree with you 100%. Palmie and Abu el Haj are arguing that there is a new discourse of race made possible by, and in the eyes of those who use it, authorized by, research on molecular lineages and the application of that research to living people (e.g. descendents of Sally Hemmings). It is new!

Ok, well I see no problem with discussing this in the article. I would draw attention to my comments above, that Y chromosome work and mtDNA work will sooner or later be superceded by genomics, this doesn't discuss ancestry by molecular lineage, it takes markers from all over the genome, so it considers ancestry from all lineages, though the lineages are mixed up in the genome. By doing this, and by comparing certain markers, called ancestry informative markers (AIMs, there is a (not very good) wiki article about them Ancestry-informative marker), a good idea of the continental origins of the whole genome is possible. It's hard for a person to argue that they belong to say a racial lineage when their genomic results show that they derive from a myriad of regions. Soon it may be possible to infer more localised ancestry, eg instead of "Europe" we may get 10% northern Europe, 40% eastern Europe, 50% southern Europe etc. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - but I think to address this effectively we need to think about the structure of the article an not just the contents. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templeton

• I have no problem with the concept of defining subspecies as "lineages", which is what Templeton has done in his paper of 1998. My problem is that much of the text in the section "race as lineage" does not correspond to Templeton's definition of "race as lineage", and does not seem to address this concept at all.

Am I right that you would agree that most biologists identify evolutionary lineages with species and subspecies? If so, then I would like to propose a two-part solution: First, provide this explanation of evolutionary lineage in the section on "race as subspecies" (I already added a Templeton citation yesterday, perhaps you think more should be added?). Second, revise the section on "race as lineage" to be more clear. How would you feel about changing the heading to "race and molecular lineages?" I have another suggestion which I will propose below.

I'm not convinced by "race and molecular lineage". Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, perhaps this akes my more radical proposal more appealing to you. But honestly, I welcome counter-suggestions.Slrubenstein | Talk 13:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clustering

• My biggest problem with the section is the inclusion of the "clustering" analyses done by Tang and Rosenberg. The whole section discusses population structure as if this were synonymous with "race as lineage" but does not show that this is a valid assumption and neither Tang nor Rosenberg make this claim.

It is true that I have resisted deleting this, but believe me when i say it was because I took the work of earlier editors who put this stuff in to begin with on good faith (and by the way I do not know who specifically added this, or did n't until you searched and found out it was Lukas somebody or other). I have a proposal on what to do with this which i will propose below, but the more we dialogue the better I understand your position and I would like to find a solution that satisfies you.

Well I don't think I would say that these editors were necessarily acting in bad faith, I can understand why someone might think that clustering is support for the concept of "race as lineage" in the sense that Templeton discusses, but it is a misunderstanding. Templeton is quite specific when he discusses his concept, he means populations that are reproductively isolated, and have been so for some time, this does not apply to any human "clusters". I also think it is important to point out that Tang and Rosenberg don't claim that their "clusters" are discrete populations, they simply claim that populations that are geographically close are on average genetically more similar to each other than they are to populations that are geographically distant. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] race as lineage is bad

• race=lineage is bad: I don't have any such belief. I have consistently stated that my problem is that in my view the section of the article does not actually address the concept of "race as lineage" at all. The concept of "race as lineage" is just a concept, it is neither bad nor good. But if we are going to discuss "race as lineage" then let us discuss it properly, let us provide Templeton's definition and discuss how it applies to the biological world and to the human population in particular. Currently the article discusses mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages, which are molecular lineages and are not relevant to "race as lineage",

This gets back to my biggest disagreement with you. I agree that there is a concept of race as subspecies which understand subspecies as evolutionary lineages. I agree that this should be included in the article (as I said, i propose in the section, race as subspecies). However, there is an emerging discourse on race that links it to molecular lineages, i.e. research on mtDNY and Y chromosome haplotypes. Are you willing to accept this, if we make the distinction between evolutionary lineage and molecular lineage clear, and have adequate discussion of race as subspecies, and clarify the discussion of the relationship between work on molecular lineages and the new emerging discourse of race?

Sounds like a reasonable proposal. I'd like to point out that Templeton's concept of subspecies (that they are discrete lineages) is not the only subspecies concept, there are many different concepts of subspecies. I think that if the article has a section on "race as subspecies" then it needs to explain that most of the time in biology "race" is synonymous with "subspecies", whatever the subspecies concept that is being used, we can find several reliable sources to support this. It is also true that sometimes in biology "race" is used to mean a relationship below that of subspecies. It's like this, most of the time species>subspecies/race in biology, sometimes species>subspecies>race, but this second concept for "race" is only used by some disciplines some of the time, it is far from the norm. It is also true that many biologists don't accept the idea of subspecies at all, and this can probably be cited as well, for these biologists it is not possible to come up with any sensible way to classify organisms below the species level. Whichever way we look at it no current concepts of race/subspecies that are used in biology support the subdivision of the human population into "races". There is some idea, promoted by certain scientists studying clustering analyses and their proponents, that "race" can be considered the extent of human genetic variation, in this instance "race" would not constitute any discrete "population", but would constitute "genetic clusters". This sort of argument would fit the discussion for the clustering analyses. People who hold this view accept that this means a different definition of "race". Neil Risch (last author of the Tang paper and a statistician) acknowledges that "clusters as race" is not easily defined in an interview where he was asked "Genome variation research does not support the existence of human races." he replied "What is your definition of races? If you define it a certain way, maybe that's a valid statement."[3] Armand Leroi in his NY Times article "A Family Tree in Every Gene" (in support of the concept of clustering as race) states "Study enough genes in enough people and one could sort the world's population into 10, 100, perhaps 1,000 groups, each located somewhere on the map." and "The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else; they are a race. At a smaller scale, three million Basques do as well; so they are a race as well. Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences".[4] Of course these positions do not actually try to give any concept of "race", which is a problem, without defining what we mean, it remains an amorphous and almost faith based belief. Still it is a valid point of view in terms of Wikipedia. This idea also has it's critics, notably those people who claim that clustering analyses promote a sense of false distinctiveness due to uneven sampling, we can cite this easily, Kittles and Weiss (2003), Serre and Pääbö (2004), Jackson (2004), Keita et al (2004) and many more. They especially point to the similarity betweent his sort of reasoning and that of physical anthropologists of the 19th and early 20th century. I think the best explanation is that of Ossorio and Duster (2005) (though plenty of discussion on the Race and genomics website) where they state

Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and non-concordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies.

Some of these points of view are already given in the article, but could be expanded upon. I think currently clustering analyses are the most hotly debated topic about "human race" and genetics. I think this sort of discussion should not be confused with race concepts in biology though, this is not about any biological concept of "race", it is about whether human genetic variation constitutes support for (undefined) human races. Indeed Neil Risch ststes categorically that they do not define their "races" "we tend to use the definition others have employed, for example, the US census definition of race"[5] and of course Tang et al. (which includes Risch as last author) use self identified "race/ethnicity". One could argue that all they are doing is showing that people who identify as belonging to the same group just tend to share more ancestry, but is this really a "definition" of "race"? Anyway it's a decent scientific debate and I think it would fit well in the clustering section, and we have plenty of ofr and against arguments from reliable sources. Sorry for going on a bit, but I think this is an important debate. Alun 10:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. I think the question is, how to incorporate an account of this complex debate in the article. A section on clusters (arguments as to whether they = race, pro and con)? Or include a discussion of clusters in the section on "population genetics (populations and clinal variation)?" Or include it in a section on "molecular genetics (haplotypes, lineages, and clusters)?" Or something else? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:02, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals

I have made one proposal, specifically, "make the distinction between evolutionary lineage and molecular lineage clear, and have adequate discussion of race as subspecies, and clarify the discussion of the relationship between work on molecular lineages and the new emerging discourse of race?"

I agree, this sounds like a sound proposal. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Now let me suggest another proposal:

First, move the section "Race and Models of Human Evolution" so that it appears before the section "race as subspecies"

Second, elaborate on "evolutionary lineages" either in the section on race and models of human evolution, or in race as subspecies

Third: After Race and Population Genetics, create a new section, Race and molecular Genetics. Would this be the appropriate place to explore population structure, clusters, and work by Tang and Rosenberg?

Fourth: under "Race as Social Constructions" create a new section on race as lineage, drawing on Abu el Haj and others?

Think about it for a day or so and then let me know what you think. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

These four proposals all seem sound, let's see how they look in the article. I think we ahve made a lot of progress here. I am particularly happy that we have been able to comminicate effectively, I suspect that the talk apge of the "race" article is a difficult place to have a detailed discussion about these concepts because there are so may people contributing, and the discussions tend to enflame passionate responses. It's good to have a calm debate. Thanks for taking time to read and respond to my concerns. Alun 13:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Alun (or Wobble - can yopu explain it to me?), I too am very glad and grateful to you. I am sorry that our interactions spiraled so far downwards. The only thing I can say by way of explanation is that I genuinely felt you misunderstood or had no regard for our NPOV policy. I am glad that you initiated this productive and congenial discussion. I also want to take this timne to say that I really do think that you are precisely the kind of editor Wikipedia needs, and needs more of. I always respected your knowledge of biology but I did get very defensive when you seemed to be dismissive of my knowing anything, and I did have serious concerns about NPOV. I know we have fully respoved the first one, and I think we are beyond the second one too. I never wanted to lock you out of the article, and I am glad that we are finding a way to sort out which points of importance to me really do have a place in the article, and also the extent to which your knowledge allows you to to clarify so much that was unclear to me. I think at this point we just need to start thinking practically about how to move forward in editing the article so as to accommodate the many points on which we have reached agreement here. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Out of the blue...

I would like to ask about a comment that you wrote on another users Talk page. You said something about the acronym: I.A.A.R.T. - I came across that by pure chance and would sincerely like to know what it stands for :-D ...All the best, Pat. Scarian 22:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry I have no idea, I can hardly remember last week let alone February? I don't even remember leaving the message. Sorry I can't help. Cheers. Alun 04:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Briton

Thanks for drawing my attention to your comment. I don't want to get too involved in the discussion (Wikipedia's very bad for my blood pressure), but I do think it's worthy of note that User:A.J.Chesswas identifies as "proud to be British" on his user page, and that over at Talk:New Zealand European#New Zealand British, two NZ editors have questioned the whole concept of New Zealanders of British descent being accurately described as "British" as, at a bare minimum, OR.

I'm a bit worried the article might be being carried away by one person's POV. Vashti 05:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ?

Dear Alun, there was a time when you were extremely upset largely by my behavior on the race page, and felt that you were being excluded from that article. Since that time I believed we had a very productive dialogue and had come very close to resolving all our respective concerns - yet, you are no longer working on the race page. I sincerely hope this is not because of my actions and want you to know I look forward to your returning and being active on that page. Of course everyone has a right to a wikibreak; I hope yours goes well and look forward to your return, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Weekly Episode 20

[edit] When you get back, enjoy!

Talk:English_people#On_Dynastic_Propaganda_of_Napoleonic_.28ex-Whig.29_Tories 68.110.8.21 13:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Briton ...

No nationalism is, in and off itself, a bad thing, being but pride in one's "home" and one's "family". When nationalism turns bad is when it marks out others who do not come from that "home" or that "family" as bad. In a corollary to this, it is just as bad to enforce belonging to a certain "family" or to enfore the recognition of certain "home" and to castigate as retrobate and backwards those who do not, for one reason or another, subscribe to that vision. In the sepcific context of these islands, 'British' nationalism has a terrible history of doing just that.

• being but pride in one's "home" and one's "family".

Are you confusing patriotism with nationalism? I think so. Let's look at the Wikipedia entry for nationalism shall we? Nationalism, in its broadest sense, is a devotion to one's nation and its interests over those of all other nations. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not confusing the two (although they are related, but patriotism generally has more do with 'doing one's duty' for their nation). Here are two basic definitions:

Oxford English Dictionary:

• patriotic feeling, often to an excessive degree
• advocacy of political independence for a particular country.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy

• the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity
• the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination

As you can see neither of these refer to anything about devotion "over those of all other nations."

Let's take a look at Merriam Webster: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.[6] The OED clearly states it is often to an excessive degree. These definitions you give are not any more "basic definitions" than the Merriam Webster definition. If you want to infer that nationalism is all about fluffy bunnies then I dispute this, it is about promoting one ethnic group over another. This is what I mean by nationalism. If you want to imply that my comments are somehow wrong because I don't know what nationalism means, then I suggest you check sources other than those that only give definitions you agree with. If you want to imply that only the definitions that you give are correct, then I would have to disagree with you. Now you know what I mean by nationalism we are on the same page. Alun 10:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• it is just as bad to enforce belonging to a certain "family" or to enfore the recognition of certain "home" and to castigate as retrobate and backwards those who do not

I couldn't agree more. If you are accusing me of doing something like this then you have clearly not read a single thing I have written. I abhore all forms of nationalism including "British nationalism". Please read what I write and respond to that and not to what you would like me to have written. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You took Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalism aside and gave them a good spanking for being "pathetic" and specifically "xenophobic" (Welsh), "hatred" (Irish), "[knowing] bugger all" (Scottish).

No I didn't, or at least I didn't mean to. I meant to give all forms of nationalism a good spanking actually, and said that "celtic" nationalism is no more acceptable than any other form of nationalism. I said I see no reason why "Britishness" is any more nationalistic or racist than any other form of nationalism (therefore acknowledging that Britishness can also be racist and nationalistic) and Welsh nationalism...extoles the virtues of hatred of English people, is considered "benign" by it's proponents, but "British nationalism" is equated with racism by the proponents of Welsh nationalism which is just highlighting the hypocricy of certain types of nationalism. I didn't say Welsh nationalism was "pathetic", I said Who in Wales has never heard those sad pathetic anti-English racists and Personally I find it pathetic that we are supposed to hate a whole group of innocent people, so the first was a comment about a specific group of people wasn't it? It's not a general comment about Welsh nationalism is it? The second was my opinion about those who want to hate other nations because they are other nations and for no other reason. I said we get hatred of "the British" from Irish nationalists, again this is a comment about a certain group of people, not about Irish nationalism as a whole, the specific is not the same as the general. My other comment was If anyone really thinks that Scots aristocrats treated their Scots subjects any better than the UK treated it's Scots subjects, then they know bugger all about the Highland Clearances, and even less about the Acts of Union 1707. This is not even a comment about nationalism, it is about history. Please quote me in context, please understand what I am saying, please don't take individual words out of my posts and ignore the thrust of what I am saying. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Whereas you claimed that "Britishness [is] significantly less racist in the modern world than certain forms of 'celtic' nationalism" and that "Britishness has been one of the main emancipatory forces in Great Britain and Ireland." In other words: Britishness = good, Welsh- Scottish- or Irishness = bad.

I didn't say this, I actually say I find Britishness significantly less racist in the modern world than certain forms of "celtic" nationalism. This is not a claim of any sort, it is my opinion (that's why it's "I find" see). There is a big difference between me expressing an opinion and me making a claim. Besides saying that Britishness is not as racist as other forms of nationalism is not the same as saying that British nationalism is good. I can claim that Tony Blair is a better PM than John Major, this does not necessarily mean that I think TB is a good PM does it? As for the comment about emancipation, how free have we ever been? But I can concede that this is probably wrong. What I really mean is that Britishness is not necessarily any "worse" than "Welshness" or "Irishness". I suppose I expressed myself badly. I don't subscribe to the twaddle that we were all free and things were lovely before "the English" came and spoiled it all. This is the sort of thing I was thinking of, indeed I am not trying to imply that Britishness has been a panacea, far from it, I am only trying to say that it is not true that all things British are bad and all things "English" or "Welsh" or "Scottish" or "Irish" are good. My point was supposed to be relative and not absolute. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You, I presume, are British, and you said that a.) to be British is good, b.) to be Welsh and British is acceptable, 3.) to be Welsh (alone) is bad. Let's spell that out: you said that not to be British is bad. That is the definition of xenophobia. Unless being Welsh includes a being British, it is, in your opinion, bad, retrobate and backwards. I am not surprised at that opinion, as it is the most common form of British nationalistic sentiment towards the non-Enlgish occupants of these islands, but I am surprised that you are making it.

• to be British is good

To be British can be good, it can be bad, just like any other form of identity. I am dismissive of all forms of nationalism, I am supportive of a sense of pride in one's nation (the people not the state) and heritage, whether that is perceived as British or Welsh is not important. I dislike the perversion of history perpetrated by nationalists that automatically designates British or English people as "Bad". It is borne of blinkered and sloppy thinking, it is also a form of racism. I don't support "Britishness" per se, but neither do I see it as any better or any worse than any other form of national pride. You seem to be trying to have an argument with me that I am not making. You do not seem to be reading what I am writing, because if you were then you would not keep trying to argue against things I have not actually said. Please respond to what I say, your discussion only fits into the blinkered ideology of nationalism that is esposed by governments and states for their own political agenda. I get the impression you do not understand what I am saying at all. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This is more like it. Nationalism does blinker people, whether that nationalism be Irish, Welsh or British. For example, if a person was to say that one form of nationalism on these islands was emancipatory, whereas other forms were parochial, sad, pathetic and racist, would you think that their writings were influenced by a certain bias? Suppose I said that that person was you, would you reconsider that you post may have been blinkered by nationalism to a certain degree?

I didn't say "British nationalism" was emancipatory, I said Britishness, I was thinking about the cultural similarities between the peoples of the isles. I certainly was not thinking about UK citizenship. I can see your point though, maybe I expressed myself badly. Maybe emancipatory is a bad word to use. I do think that it can be very freeing to try and see the similarities between us rather than always concentrating on the divisions, this is what I really meant. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• to be Welsh and British is acceptable

Why should it not be? Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

No reason what-so-ever.

• to be Welsh (alone) is bad

Not always, it's fine to be Welsh alone, what I object to is the xenophobia of fundamentalist nationalist who is determined to hate everything that they perceive as "foreign". I merely point out that many nationalists (Welsh, Scottish and Irish) have distorted and rewritten history in order to promote a form of ethnic hatred. My point is that blame for the atrocities committed by a state (for example the UK) is held the state itself and the people who run it (i.e. the executive or government) and not the population (nation) of any particular country. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"fundamentalist nationalist" - ah! But that's not what you said. What you said was that it was simply "Welsh nationalism", without any clarifier of extremism, that "extoles the virtues of hatred of English people." You said the same about "Irish nationalists", again without any mention of extremists.

Well nationalists are always extremists aren't they? Now don't get me wrong, I am not against independence for Wales, that is a matter for the Welsh people. I think Plaid have the best set of policies of any political party in Wales. The confusion here is simply that we are using different meanings for nationalism. See above where we clearly mean different things by nationalism. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Let's spell that out: you said that not to be British is bad

No I didn't. Have you actually read anything I have written? Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You said that you "find Britishness significantly less racist in the modern world than certain forms of 'celtic' nationalism." Signfificantly less racist is certainly a good thing, no? You derrided all other (individual) forms of nationalism on these islands as pathetic, parochial, hateful, ignorant, racist, etc. and you cannot see why I think that you are arguing British, Good, Other, Bad?

But you are not following what I am saying are you? "Significantly less racist" is a better thing. Just because one thing is better than another it does not necessarily make that thing good, does it? I did not deride all other forms of nationalism as bad, I derided all forms of nationalism as bad. When I talk about Britishness I am not talking about nationalism, but of our shared culture, I assume that you accept that we share a great deal of culture with each other, even if the reasons we share this culture may be unsavory. I get the impression we are misunderstanding each other here. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"Most people belonging to all of the nations of Great Britain and Ireland have lived in bondage to their respective aristocracies for the vast majority of time." The respective aristocracy in Ireland was wiped out in the first half of the 17th century. Their replacement, known as the Ascendancy, were put in place by the English parliament which governed Ireland as a colony and assured the Ascendancy of their position by a brutal state-sponosred sectarianism, the type of which no other nation on these islands have ever known. That sectarianism had the stated purpose of no other reasons but to perminatly subjecate the Irish population in their relationship with Enlgand and the aristocratic class that England had imported to maintain its rule in Ireland. That continued for centuries and is the source of the continued sectarianism and violence that dogs my island to this day (neither of the conflicting communities in Northern Ireland belonged to the Ascendancy, one being merely favoured above the other).

• So you are agreeing with me? In the history of habitation of the Anglo-Celtic Isles four hundred years ago is very recent indeed. The first people to colonise these lands did so some 10,000-14,000 years ago, it is absolutely certain that most of our ancestors were the same people whether one consideres themselves Irish, Welsh or English. Most of these ancestors certainly lived in bonded labour to their local aristocracies. Your point about the Ascendancy merely supports what I have been saying, doesn't it? That it is states and governments that engage in oppression and not people or nations? Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

So was it an army of Cromwellian robots that reduced the population of Ireland from 2 million to 850,000 in 1652? Was it a dastardly government plant that boasted in 1847 that "in a few years more, a Celtic Irishman will be as rare in Connemara as is the Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan"? Who burned Cork or mascacred a football crowd in 1920? Robots! Government robots! Or slaves! Yes, all slaves and robots. Yes. Yes. Slaves and robots. No other explanation.

Eh? Well you can "hate" me and "blame" me for something that was done by people I do not know on the orders of a government I did not vote for or support. I think it just goes to show that I have a point though. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

That is what Britishness means to me and the consensus of Irish people. It does not represent fairness or equity. It represents a vision of "home" and of "family" among our peoples that puts England at its heart and partiarch and the others among us as cattle stock to be utilised in the sustanance of England. You will excuse me, I'm sure, for not being pleased with that relationship and understand why I would be naturally antipathic towards it.

• So on the one hand you clearly understand that it was the UK government and the aristocratic classes that perpetrated the crimes that were inflicted on your people, which I agree with. But on the other hand you want to blame the whole British nation for that oppression, even though you seem to understand that it was not the actual British nation who inflicted it? This is the heart of why nationalism is so corrosive, it is the hatred that is spread by xenophobes such as Slobadan Milosevich. It is used to foment hatred against a whole group of people, who are not personally responsible for the crimes they are associated with, in order to promote the vested interests of a few. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I wrote about "Britishness", "a vision of 'home'", and a "relationship" between the pople of these islands. I said that the vision and the relationship espoused by "Britishness" is undesireable to the consensus of Irish people. I said nothing about British people or English people. Can you not tell the difference between the two?

I don't see Britishness as anything like this. Britishness has got nothing to do with putting the others among us as cattle stock to be utilised in the sustanance of England. Britishness is about the culture we all hold in common, how can a common culture do what you claim? You are discussing politics are you not? Surely you are actually talking about the Union, that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland? This is not Britain or Britishness. I think that in part you are validating some of what I was saying earlier, you are conflating the idea of shared culture (and much culture is not shared in common, but it is an inescapable fact that much is, we people of the isles hardly recognise each other as "foreign", I don't know anyone who would think of an Irish person as "foreign" even though they are obviously a citizen of a different state) with political dominance, England is politically dominant because it is so big, nothing very much England can do about that. Indeed England is exceedingly heterogeneous and it's union into a single state or nation was no more inevitable than the union of Wales, Scotland and England into a single state. Or if you will, Britain is not necessarily any more artificial than Wales, Scotland or England. Note I said "not necessarily", this is highly dependent on one's point of view. Personally I think that the idea of the "nation" is a very recent one and see no reason to assume that people would have identifiréd as belonging to an Irish or Welsh or English nation even as recently as a thousand years ago. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Your Marxist sentiment is honourable. We have not all been aristocrats, but neither have we all benefitted equally from the vision of "Britishness." The needs of England and English people have invariably been put ahead of the other people of our "family" and reaped the greatest benefits of Britishness. English and British are, unfortunately, conterminous. The "home" of Britain is fixedly the "home" of England. The "family" of Britain, the pride of English history. While otherwise proposing a nationalist solution from a Marixist analysis would be bewildering, in truth, I suspect that you have been sucked into the false consciousness or yore. The institutional processes of capitalism convincing you of the rightness of the ideology that maintains it - as Britishness most certainly has done for the capitalists (and aristrocrats) of England (whether you be, in fact, Welsh, Scottish. Irish etc. is irrevelent).

• Your Marxist sentiment is honourable.

I'm not a Marxist, I'm an anarchist, Marxists are just as authoritarian as nationalist and I hate all forms of coercion. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any great emphasis on the removal of authority, for no reason other than because athoritiy is wrong, in your analysis. You didn't at any point say that the concept of the "state", in and of itself, is at fault. What I do see is an emphasis on class strugle and false consciousness, typically Marxist perspectives. Any argument you made against authority was through this perspective, that authority works to the benefits of a bourgeoisie and against the interests of a proletariat. This is typically Marxist, not anarchist.

I was not discussing anarchist theory was I? If you want to discuss anarchism then I'd be happy to. I don't know what you are trying to imply here, I have told you that I am an anarchist and not a Marxist, the least you could do is accept my word for it. Do you presume to dictate to me my own political beliefs? Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• The needs of England and English people have invariably been put ahead of the other people

I don't think this is at all true, and I don't think there is a shred of evidence to support it. The interests and needs of a few aristocrats and industrialists have always been put ahead of anything else. To claim that English people have been put ahead of other nations in the UK is simply not true. There are numerous instances of the English nation having been royally shit upon by the UK aristocracy, but I suppose they do not teach this abroad. Do you know about the Peterloo Massacre? I have already mentioned the enclosures, how does this constitute putting the interests of English people first? Can you expalain it to me please? How were the Corn Laws advantageous to the English people? Why do you think the Chartists needed to organise? Which of the four regions of the UK is the only one to lack any form of national assembly or government? Well it's the English. I was lucky enough to go to a Welsh language school. For the whole of my time in school from 1971 to 1986 I was schooled through the medium of Welsh, this is hardly an example of oppression is it? Compare this to the French government's attitude to Breton, where the state will not fund a single Breton language school. It is incorrect to claim that the UK has acted more favourably to the population of England than to the population of the rest of the state, this is a lie perpetrated by nationalists and racists for their own political gain. You can believe it if you like, but it is always good to be aware that there are always different points of view, and that the only way to get a good understanding of any period of history is to read many different versions of history. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Peterloo? The enlosures?? That's the best you could do? The population of Ireland is today clawing its way back up to what it was at entering into union with Great Britain. 400 hundred years of institutional sectarianism and economic descimation to benefit the economy and politics of England! Peterloo - I suppose you would compare it to 1798!!? The Corn laws affected the Irish too - mainly forcing them into starvation! The enclosures?!? You're giving an Irishman a lecture on the relationship of land-ownership to poverty when the linchpin of the penal laws was to subjectate the Irish people through just that very same mechanism!?? Please. Read something. Anything!

Actually I am not giving an Irishman a lecture on anything. This is not a competition, "my country is poorer than yours". You claim that 400 hundred years of institutional sectarianism and economic descimation to benefit the economy and politics of England. I don't think this is a very balanced view, it is more correct to say 400 hundred years of institutional sectarianism and economic descimation to benefit the economy and politics of the aristocracy and landed classes. I am not here to defend the UK government, or the UK state. You claimed that The needs of England and English people have invariably been put ahead of the other people, when I provide evidence that this is simply not true you don't try to address it, you simply claim that Ireland had it worse. I know this already, but to try and claim that this is the fault of the English nation is unfair and biased. English people were not treated well by their elite, English people suffered throughout the agricultural and industrial revolutions. It is incorrect and biased to try to paint a picture of all English people living in opulence at the expense of Irish people. This is what I call nationalism, this is what I call racism, the idea that "all them are bad and all us are good". English people did not vote for governments at this time, English people were not free at this time, the government was controlled by a cabal of wealthy aristocrats and industrialists, many of whom were not English but Welsh and Scottish and possibly Irish as well. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• English and British are, unfortunately, conterminous

This is your opinion and not a statement of fact. The rest of this paragraph is opinion, you are perfectly entitled to hold this opinion, but be aware that it is not supported by history and is not held by everyone, it is certainly not "fact". This opinion may well be held by many people, it may well be included in the article as opinion that can be verified and cited, but it is not the only way to look at things and other opinions may also be included as well. Wikipedia does not exist to perpetuate the nationalistic feelings of a single group, but to express all points of view. This goes to the hub of the matter, too often individuals want only the POV that supports their own personal opinion to be included, but want to exclude all other POVs. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

First, none of what I have written here is related to the Briton article. Your post to that talk page had nothing to do with improving the article. I am responding to it here because I don't want to clutter that page with unrelated material.

I disagree. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Second, that British and English are conterminous is stock material for the sociology of nationalism on these islands. See here for example:

"So-called ‘British’ histories were, until relatively recently, largely the histories of England and the English; the so called ‘Celtic’ nations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland were largely ignored, or where they were directly addressed, were largely problematised (Kearney, 1989;Colley, 1992). Likewise, as David McCrone observes of the early development of British sociology:

"British sociology simply accepted that ‘society’ was coterminous with the British state, unitary and highly centralised, driven by social change in the political and cultural heartland of southern Britain [i.e., England]. If there was a particular sociology of the ‘periphery’ – in Wales, Ireland and Scotland – it had to do with analysing a ‘traditional’, pre-capitalist way of life. It was judged to be the task of the sociologist of these parts merely to chart its decline and ultimate incorporation into ‘modern’ society, or so it seemed." (1992: 5)

"This, of course, simply reminds the Welsh, Scots and other non-English peoples living in Britain that they continue to live in a multinational state dominated by the English (Connor, 1993; Crick, 1989, 1995; Miles, 1996). But it is further problematised by a second set of assumptions, about what it is to be English. The less contested, the more tacit, this identificatory category has been – or, more accurately, has been seen to be – the more it was an assumption that ‘the English’ were delimited as white, broadly Christian, and whatever was and is meant by ‘Anglo Saxon’ (perhaps it simply meant ‘not Celtic’). ..."

- Fenton S., S. May, "Ethnicity, Nation and ‘Race’: Connections and Disjunctures." In S. Fenton, & S. May (eds.), 2002 , Ethnonational Identities. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Yes, and? Providing sources to support your point of view is admirable. I agree that much "British" history is in fact "English" history in disguise. I am always saddened to find a distinct lack of Welsh history in "British" history books. I also agree with the idea that a great deal of British culture is identified as English (sometimes incorrectly, what's English about drinking tea for example?). I do not agree that this is equivalent to claiming that English and British are identical. If this were the case then we would all be English would we not? We all share a great deal of our culture with the English, like it or not, if you are saying that this culture is "English", then what you are saying is that we are all "English". I don't agree, I don't think that because I enjoy drinking tea, played rugby in school, follow cricket on the telly (and support Glamorgan) and do a whole host of other things that are British (but that you think of as English) that that makes me English. Doing these things makes me British because they are things other British people do. English people do them as well, they are also British, there are a lot more English people, so often these things are associated with English people, this does not necessarily make these things more English than British IMHO. You may disagree, but I am comfortable with my identity, I don't need to dislike English people because of the crimes of the UK state, I don't need to dislike the epithet British because of historical crimes committed by people who were an unrepresentative elite who have nothing to do with the world as it is now. Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The pain of such an ideology, as is the nature of all false consciousnesses, is that it warps truth and argument such that opposition to it, by its own logic, become evidience for its support. So: Britishness represents concord between our peoples; WEL/SCO/IRE nationalism is the opposite of Britishness; thus, WEL/SCO/IRE nationalism represents discord between our peoples; we are all against discord between our peoples; thus, we must want Britishness. Likewise, it has warped your thinking to believe that opposition to "Britishness" (whether that opposition be expressed through the assertion of opposing nationalisms, or criticism of "Britishness" itself) is opposition to a people, rather than to the ideology that it is. --sony-youth^pléigh 09:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• This does not address my argument at all. See above, I did not say this, nor do I think this is true. All forms of nationalism are anathema because they arte all based on racism, this includes British nationalism. If you had actually read what I have written previously thoroughly then you would not have written this on my talk page as you would be aware that I did not say anything like it. Alun 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It does address your point. It addresses the root of it. It was also intended to show that opposition to "Britishness" is not necessarily aimed at opposition to the people of Britain, or specifically England, but as opposition to a particular kind of relationship existing between the people of these islands. It is not, let's be clear, opposition to any kind of relationship between our people. --sony-youth^pléigh 09:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• It does address your point.

OK, so you obviously think you understand the point I was making better than I understand it myself. Care to tell me what point you thought I was making so we can tidy this matter up? Alun 12:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, we are talking at cross purposes for a great deal. First, let me tell you that it is not necessary to subscribe to "Britishness" to appreciate a commonality among the people of Briain and Ireland. What is unfortunate is that "Britishness" is the only means to express a common identity (Celticism does a half-job at doing so, but by (modern) definition excludes the English - which is pretty much its purpose too, in my opinion, and useful to that extent). I cannot, will not, do not want to, or could not ever imagine adopting "British" identity. To begin with I have far too much respect for my fellow inhabitants of these islands to wish to see them erased in a monolithic, aggressive, expansionist, nationaist (in the sense that we can both appreciate) ideology. It does no-one any justice, be they Englsh, Irish, Scot or Welsh.

In Ireland, after the Union, there was debate throughout the 19th century about whether Irish people, Catholic and Protestant alike, would ever feel "British," or even want to be. The consensus was that maybe, possibly, in some kind of way, but still not quite, if, and only if, "Britishness" changed in its attitude towards the non-Enlgish people of these islands. You say that "England is politically dominant because it is so big, nothing very much England can do about that," but how did it get so big? And how was that process tied to the development of "Britishness" in its modern sense?

Second, much related, there is nothing about being Welsh, Scottish, or Irish that necessiates "hating the English." Nothing. There is nothing worthy that can substantiate even imagining so. What is perfectly okay to hate, however, is a history of cultural dominance of "English" over "Welsh", "Scottish" and "Irish." Why would this not be okay to hate? If one has pride in one's heritage, those parts that make you special, not only those that make you special in common with all of the people of these islands, then its quite natural to not want them to be run rough-shod over, to desest the history of the way that this has happened before, to want to ensure that it will never happen again, and to resist the residual influence of that history where it devalues the merit of the unique heritage that you possess. This is not hatred of a people. This does not dictate that you must "hate the English." Do not confuse it with that.

Finally, the argument that we should all just love and get along because it was never the "people" who did this-or-that, it was those datardly artistocrats ... I'm sorry, but this does nothing for me. It sounds like, "Don't hate the English, hate the rich English." Its pointless because the English are not the issue, be they rich or poor. Its the relationship. And, yes, it does matter if "my country is poorer than your country." It shows that in the relationship that existed, the English (all English) benefitted disproportionately to their counterparts elsewhere on these islands. That was wrong. To me, and I feel comfortably saying this on behalf of the consensus of Irish people, that is what "Britishness" represents - the wrong kind of relationship, but rejection of that does not mean a rejection of the things we have in common with the other people of these islands. Nor does it mean hating the English. It means wanting a reformulation and resisting the flawed formulation of the past. --sony-youth^pléigh 13:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• it is not necessary to subscribe to "Britishness" to appreciate a commonality among the people of Briain and Ireland.

So how do you "subscribe" to it? Britishness is just a word, I'm equally comfortable with the term "Anglo-Celtic" instead of British, but I suspect this would be considered a neologism on wikipedia. Indeed the term itself is not important per se, it is the acknowledgment that we have much in common, not all of it good mind. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• but how did it get so big?

The political union of the Kingdoms of England is quite well documented, but essentially it has a lot to do with the Danelaw and the expansion of Wessex followed by the wholescale takeover by foreign powers in 1016 and 1066. The "English" aristocracy is in fact not English at all, but Norman French, this is noe of the reasons why it has been so contemptuous of all of it's subordinate peoples, including the English, the aristocracy has been separate and apart from the people, for about 1000 years. They still hold the rest of the population in contempt as far as I can see. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• there is nothing about being Welsh, Scottish, or Irish that necessiates "hating the English."

This is my point though isn't it? When we hear the ultra-nationalists they certainly give the impression that every problem Wales/Scotland/Ireland has is the fault of "the English", and that we should hate them. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• What is perfectly okay to hate, however, is a history of cultural dominance of "English" over "Welsh", "Scottish" and "Irish."

Or really it is the perception of cultural dominance that ultra-nationalists have fostered in order to gain political support. Much of this so called "cultural dominance" is not English at all, but was introduced into (or developed in) the British and Irish Isles after they had been politically unified. What are the examples of this "cultural dominance", and were they forcibly introduced or were they adopted freely by the respective populations? I do think that there is a perception fostered by ultra-nationalists that a great deal of coercion was used to displace Welsh in favour of English in Wales, but I don't know that this is true. The Welsh historian John Davies claims that Welsh people stopped speaking Welsh because it was in their interests to do so and not because they were forced to do so. It is almost impossible to coerce a people into giving up their culture, the Soviet Union tried it with Estonia, but I've been to Estonia and Estonians still speak Estonian happily, even though the language had been banned by Stalin. Coercion does not work, no state can dictate what language people speak in their own homes and to their own families. So I'm saying on the one hand that I don't think that the modern "British" culture is really any more "English" than it is "British", and on the other I don't think this "cultural dominance" was necessarily introduced coercively anyway, but it's what ultra-nationalists want us to believe because it supports their political agenda. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Don't hate the English, hate the rich English.

Eh? So you think that the Highland Clearances were perfectly OK because it's OK for the rich Scots to do this sort of thing, but it's not OK for the rich English to do this sort of thing? That's a strange logic to me. But it certainly fits with ultra-nationalistc thought, in that it's OK for a nation to be exploited by it's own elite, but not by any other elite. I wonder if you have read Roddy Doyle's book A Star Called Henry, where Henry Smart would certainly disagree with you, and is equally dismissive of the Irish landlords who he thinks just wanted to replace the "British" exploiters.Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• the English (all English) benefited disproportionately to their counterparts elsewhere on these islands

I don't think it does. There you go again thinking that better is the same as good. The only people who benefited disproportionately were the landowners/exploiters of whatever nation, full stop. There were Irish landowners who were perfectly happy to exploit other Irish people, you can bury your head in the sand all you like, but I don't find your argument convincing. No one besides the landowners benefited at all. The English did not have such a bad time of it as the Irish, this is not the same as saying that the English benefited. I find your logic flawed. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• but rejection of that does not mean a rejection of the things we have in common with the other people of these islands. Nor does it mean hating the English.

Well this is just what I was saying originally. To many many nationalists this is exactly what it does mean, and I suspect you know this perfectly well. Alun 14:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Alun is taking a long wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia some time

I hope nothing to do with our discussion above. Best of luck Alun. Thanks for all the help, especially on Briton. Take care. --sony-youth^pléigh 21:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't leave the above text, it was one of that bravest of people an anonymous editor!! [7] I am on a semi-break, I'm just responding to messages on my talk page , but I might stop checking my page soon. Cheers. Alun 14:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Related groups" on the Welsh people article.

It's not racism at all. I'm given to understand that "related groups" refers primarily to "ethnolinguistically related", rather than genetics or anything similar: after all, nobody in their right mind denies that the Welsh are genetically related to the English (or half of Europe for that matter!). Ethnolinguistically, the Welsh have a stronger affinity to other speakers of Celtic languages, rather than to the English. Dewrad 23:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)