It is equally as ridiculous to argue that differences in physical characteristics have absolutely no correlation with physiological ones, as it is to argue that physical characteristics determine or correlate exactly with physiological ones. Of course, at stake here is not the size of one's nose or the kinkiness of one's hair - rather one's psychological capacities.

Hardline feminists are content that the phallus is inherently male - as well as indicative of sexual violence - and therefore acknowledge the effect of hormones such as oestrogen and testosterone. However, they refuse to consider the possibility that hormonal differences between males and females impact psychology as well, and consider that gender is merely a social construct, an attitude that ignores objective scientific research. Of course, hormonal differences do not mean that women are to be maintained as sex slaves in forced marriages anymore than men are supposed to always earn more and be the breadwinners of their families.

The same is true of race. The indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Australasia and Polyesia are mere decades or centuries behind those of Europe - as can be said of the Arabs, Turks, Persians and South Asians - their underdevelopment is in the order of millennia. Unless one were to accept the multiregional hypothesis of human origins, one is forced to admit that there were few helping hands for primordial Man and yet, to quote Bram Stoker's Dracula, "they have been losing now for 2000 years".

I. Mercs and Beemers are easily distinguishable from one another visually, and not by their coloring, but by their external branding. Their branding impacts everything from the shape of the cars' bodies, headlights, grilles, tailights, logos and ornamentation. BMW's logo that highlights the Bayern coat-of-arms and Daimler's unique symbol are the key trademarks for this branding, and these trademarks - not corporate cultures - are what identifies these cars when they cruise down a street. Every marketing executive knows that a product's branding can be worth more in the drive for market share than its quality. Perhaps if we all gouged out our eyes like Oedipus and began telepathically communing with cars to discern the mood in the board room and on the assembly line, "culture" might come into play here.

II. Multiculturalism is predicated on social contractarianism and the belief that civic nationalism based on adherence to the rule of law and participation in politics can overcome ethnic nationalism and its emphasis on physical characteristics, genetic lineage and affinity, and seemingly irrelevant customs pertaining to dress, cuisine, spirituality and religion, arts, etc. Multiculturalism collides with nationality as its ethnic foundations cannot be extricated - lest all national sovereignty and boundaries be rendered arbitrary and obsolete. Given that progressivism - whether in its liberal or egalitarian forms - is linear, it follows that the right political and socio-economic systems can be divined - right for all. Culture would be an instrument to achieve this utopia, and would have an ideal breadth and substance - with anything less not sufficient to uphold this model society and anything more (e.g. religion) an encumbrance to it. Of course, progressivism makes the same assumptions as Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs & Steel...

III. It is more reasonable to associate nationality with genetic ties - and their concomitant physical manifestations - than with language. Indeed, Western anthropology did so until it became dominated by members of a certain minority ethnic group, who emphasized linguistic ties for self-evident and self-serving reasons. Europeans were once expected to be fluent in several languages in order to participate fully in European commercial activities, to and appreciate other nations' artistic and intellectual products. Nor did this fluency make an Englishman more French or Greek, or a Russian more German. Indeed, nationalism was in fact stronger than at present - and it has little to do with the proliferation of English. Religions also expand beyond nations, as Islam and Christianity both attest.

IV. Culture is always in flux and is never static. Therefore, it is improbable to believe that every nation can maintain a "distinctive culture" given that it may be permeated by other cultures, and that these foreign influences may be more conducive to development and/or advancement. Globalisation will ensure that no advantageos cultural traits can be kept secret.

Err. Uhh. Didn't the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes become a nation, not by common descent, but after they got tired of whopping the be-jeepers out of each other? That was sort of a social contract, eh? Until William burnt his boats. And don't get me started on Germany. Modern nation-states are about as organic as plastic fruit. All the towel-heads need is the regular application of a 2x4 upside their heads -- for say, oh, the next 200 years, or until they find Jesus, whichever comes first -- and they'll fit in with all the rest of us mongrel dogs just fine.

Kelly said, “In our attempt to avoid imposing a single British identity and culture, have we ended up with some communities living in isolation of each other, with no common bonds between them?” (Speech, 24 August 2006). And Blair’s speech, entitled “The Duty to Integrate: Shared British Values” (delivered on 8 December 2006) concluded with a muscular and rather aggressive sentence which, only years previously, would have marked him out as extreme right: “Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don't come here.”

Mr. Laughland deduces an "attack on multiculturalism" from these political statements, but is it, really? To me it just sounds like both esteemed gentlemen would like to "row the boat [of MC'ism] without making waves".

When no longer able to deny the seriously negative consequences of multiculturalism, members of the political establishment will always maintain that they never ment it to go the way it went. But as Mr. Laughland doesn't care to mention, MC never really was simply about groups of separate peoples "deciding to live together," was it?

With its emphasis on racial or ethnical "identity" MC has always been a "well intended" elitist ideology, more akin to so-called "ethical colonialism". More or less the same mentality i.m.o. continued to inform the high-minded attempts at massive social engineering labeled "foreign aid" or "development aid", after most of the colonies were abandoned by Western powers.

So the same pattern returns, over and over. The self-styled good guys are always posing as the all-overseeing neutral benefactor, a benevolent party with the power to grant rights, or privileges actually, on behalf of the State to the celebrated "tribes" that together constitute that dreamed of and wonderfully "diverse" collection of ethnicities, sort of a well assorted stamp collection.

In short: to understand the mentality of the well-meaning ethical colonialists of the early 20th century, is to get a good feel for the closely related mentalities of the elitist self-colonizers of this new century, as well as the foreign aiders who participate in the international development industry. I agree with MF's point 5 and concluding remarks, which could be stretched just a bit further into the supposition that multiculturalism shares a nasty feature with B-und-B ideology, in sofar as both are based on "racial essentialism," the main difference being the one a dogmatically inclusive and "positive", and the other a dogmatically exclusive and "negative" variety.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,

Sag.

“If one were to compare a blue BMW with a black Mercedes, then no sensible person would say that it is the color blue that 'defines' the BMW, and the color black that defines the Mercedes. It is the different - sometimes contrasting - 'qualities' (cultures?) that define these different 'types' of cars.”

This comment strikes me as a straw man. English people feel an affinity to each other because they share a sense of common kinship, skin color being only one indication among many of this commonality. Whether this psychological bond has a cultural or genetic basis is beside the point. It is real.

You’re still creating a straw man if your comment is meant as an attack on racialist thinking. The racialist argument isn’t that differences in skin color are the be all and end all. It’s that human populations differ statistically in a wide range of mental traits: intelligence, sexual behavior, ability to defer gratification, etc.

See:
http://inverted-world.com/index.php/articles/articles/the_reality_of_rac...

Even if immigrants affirm their commitment to British values, nothing will change because we do not choose to be the kind of people we are. Many aspects of human behavior are inherited.

Subjugation defines the order of the Enlightenment: subjugation of nature by human intellect, colonial control through physical and cultural domination, and economic superiority through mastery of the laws of the market.
David Goldberg

1) If one were to compare a blue BMW with a black  Mercedes, then no sensible person would say that it is the color blue that 'defines' the BMW, and the color black that defines the Mercedes.  It is the different - sometimes contrasting - 'qualities' (cultures?) that define these different 'types' of cars. 

2)  If human societies are not based on a "contract", either explicitly or implicitly, they simply do not survive for long.  Unless enough people in a particular geographic space are willing to pursue certain common purposes that are central to 'society', that society will not survive as a separate entity.  It is of course true that "blood relationship and paternity" - what about maternity? - typically are important factors underlying the needed social 'contract', but they are neither essential nor sufficient.  While blood relationship CAN be an indication of common purpose (or contract), many other factors - such as language and religion/nonreligion - can be just as important as indicators.  But none of them, in and of themselves can guarantee nationhood.  It is the 'social contract' that is the essential requirement, i.e. the willigness to live under common 'rules/customs'.  

3) Obviously 'multiculturalism' is at odds with nationhood, because it undermines the necessary social 'contract'.  It divides the polity into different "nations" (or cultures). But, it doesn't necessarily follow that the nation is based on blood relationship.  If the Northern and Southern Irish do not want to live together under common 'rules', then they do not have the social contract that makes a 'nation' and they cannot form 1 single sovereign country.  The same applies to Iraqi shia and sunnis, etc... There may be numerous 'blood ties', but the social contract is an essential requirement.

4) Ideally, perhaps, a nation coincides with a country or a polity, but there are many countries in the world containing several 'nations'.  The survival of a nation, either as a separate country or as part of a larger political entity, requires a minimum willingness to retain a separate identity (usually made visible through a distinct language and/or other 'customs' (religious or otherwise) and behavior patterns as part of a social contract.

5) Mr Laughland himself wrote that "Through left-liberalism, European nations have systematically destroyed the values which, as extended families, they once embodied".   Indeed, it is these "values" (in total) that define their separate culture or nationhood.  They were formed over many centuries (involving numerous 'paternities', events and sacrifice), and losing them means losing identity and nationhood.  Blood relationship cannot guarantee adherence to them (left-liberal Europeans prove that every day). Common values need to be transmitted/inculcated to the young; if they are not, then the nation will fracture and disappear into another or into many other nations. Ultimately it comes back to many individuals and the choices they make. 

The Blut-und-Boden view of nationhood is just as destructive for any society as the illusion of multiculturalism is.  They both lead to oblivion of the nation. Nationhood requires common values, i.e. a distinctive culture.

Laughland: A nation – as the word suggests, derived as it is from the verb ‘to be born’ – is a family. A family can be a source of great love, indifference or even fratricidal conflict, just as a nation can experience cohesion, social exclusion or civil war. Nations can certainly welcome into their midst people who are not originally members of it, just as a family can expand to include in-laws. Both can and should show tolerance and friendship towards them. But at the end of the day, nations like families are bodies of people related to each other by blood.

Excellent definition.

Renan's perspectives on the nation seem to draw upon Hobbes' concept of the social contract, and are remarkably similar to Karl Deutsch's - the latter positing that a nation is but "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours". Indeed, Rawls' A Theory of Justice also relies upon the Hobbesian social contract, a concept intended to justify conservative authoritarianism. Were Locke's idea of reason employed instead, one could argue that nations are inherently natural and the culmination of socio-political organisation.

When arguing for the primacy of the nation, one must prove that it is a superior polity than any sub-national or supra-national alternative, incl. the extremes of anarchy and the global state, respectively. In doing so, the nation comes into conflict with the individual as much as class or race, even if one's involuntary and automatic membership in a nation does not preclude loyalty or affinity to or with one's self, etc.

A nation(state) is a non-white collection of individuals with a common cultural and political identity. 

I argue about the concept of "nation" quite a bit , and I think the most clarifying thing to do is to consult the etyomology of the word nation.

The American Heritage Dictionary claims:

[Middle English nacioun, from Old French nation, from Latin nātiō, nātiōn-, from nātus, past participle of nāscī, to be born; see genə- in Indo-European roots.]

To be born

A Nation is a group of people who are blood-bound.

There are some exceptions when it comes to history-less countries like the US.  But nations like those in Europe are absolutely highly built upon ethnicity. This is a fight I get in with some Americans who view any acknoweldgement that ethnicity should have any basis for the political makeup or decisions of a government.

That view may be valid in the US, but I think it's absolutely ill-equipped when having any discussion about Europe.. and to me, it's a sign of belligerant ignorant sanctimoniousness when folks like some verdant colored reptile clones get on their high horse because someone has a picture of a 129 year old European politician standing in front of a cross with a groovy design