On the Use of 'Collectivity Nouns'

by Paul ten Have
retired Associate Professor, Sociology,
University of Amsterdam

This is an invitation to (re-)consider the use of what I will call ‘collectivity nouns’. What I mean is nouns like ‘America’, ‘Europe’, etc, as well as their derivatives like ‘American’, and even pronouns such as ‘we’, when used to denote a collectivity such as ‘the American people’, or ‘Europeans’. I will in particular examine and criticize occasions in which such collectivities are discussed as if they were moral actors. My critique is intended to stay on the level of discourse. Its target is discursive practices rather than material ones.

My reflections were triggered by my reading of recent posts on the events in Egypt, by Tom Kando and reactions under the name of ‘Johnny’. I was at times a bit confused, or at least slightly irritated, by the terms and phrases they used.

I can, of course in the context of its use disambiguate ‘America’ as referring to the U.S.A., and Tom’s ‘we’ and ‘our’ as showing his identification with that same object. ‘Europe’ is more difficult; does that refer to the western part of the Eurasian continent, or to the EU or to a loosely defined cultural unity? For me, as a European, what strikes me most is the immense variety within Europe, socially, culturally, politically. It is only in a global contrast with other areas or countries, like ‘America’, that a semblance of a unitary object is created.

A rather different semantic problem concerns the events in Egypt: is what is happening there rightly called a revolution? I would say it is a ‘revolt’ or an uprising. The possibilities of a crack-down of the revolt, or a marginally adapted but firm restoration of the ancien regime do still exist.

Here are quotes concerning the America/Europe contrast in relation to Israel, which is a key factor in the further development of the events in the international arena. Kando and his opponent are in agreement that the issue of Israel is ‘complicated’.

Kando writes: “Europe is more critical of Israel than America is. America is more involved in the Middle Eastern Peace Process. It is not clear who is more right, and where anti-Zionism ebbs over into anti-Semitism. In light of 20th century history, Europe should not be too vocally anti-Israel.”

His opponent says: “Another reason you (that is the US) are spending so much in the middle east is to protect Israel. The resources it costs the US is immense and the moral justness of supporting this regime can be more and more questioned. (Especially from a Palestinian point of view.)”

And: “Europeans indeed have a lot of guilt for the genocide and atrocities practised by the Germans in WWII. However, I believe that you don't gain a right to practice atrocities by receiving them. Even atrocities on a different scale and certainly not against people who did not have anything to do with it.”

These densely formulated quotes seem to hint at a variety of reasonings that one needs to ‘unpack’ in order to understand and evaluate what is going on there. The first sentence in the Kando quote, ‘Europe is more critical of Israel than America is’, seems at first sight clear enough, and as a summary statement quite correct. It is not too clear however what the actual, concrete objects are of the terms “Europe’, ‘America’ and ‘Israel’. Tom probably meant to refer to a general trend in the public opinion of people in ‘Europe’ versus those in ‘America’. But what about the object ‘Israel’? This could include the very existence of ‘Israel’ as a state, the current or recent overall policy of the state, the general situation of ‘Israel’ (including the occupied territories and the settlements), and/or specific recent actions like the wars in Lebanon and Gaza. In the second part of his third sentence, ‘ It is not clear who is more right, and where anti-Zionism ebbs over into anti-Semitism’, Kando suggests that there are two basic attitudes, which he calls ‘anti-Zionism’ and ‘anti-Semitism’, which are hard to distinguish. The first can be defined as a negative attitude towards the Zionist project in toto, i.e the very existence of ‘Israel’, while the second refers to a general negative attitude towards Jews as Jews. His ‘punch line’ is: ‘In light of 20th century history, Europe should not be too vocally anti-Israel’. It is not hard to understand which part of ‘20th century history’ is meant here, the Shoah. And this is indeed what the opponent reads in it, as can be seen in his quotes above. What is suggested, then, is that because the Shoah happened in Europe, more than 60 years ago, Europeans should still not be openly critical of (any?, some? which?) aspects of 21st Century ‘Israel’.

The Shoah was undoubtedly one of the most unjust and terrible events in human history, inflicted on innocent individuals by the perverted Nazi regime in Germany. In many European countries they were assisted in their misdeeds by individual collaborators. But there were others, some in Germany, more in some other countries who resisted the Nazi pursuit, although most Europeans passively stood by (and were informed about the event and its scale only afterwards). The Nazi regime was defeated in 1945 and many things happened in the years following, both in Germany and elsewhere. One of these was the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948. This certainly had lots to do with the Shoah, but it was also a culmination of the Zionist project which started much earlier.

Now I want to return to the words of Tom’s opponent. From the first quote above: “The resources it costs the US is immense and the moral justness of supporting this regime (the Israeli one) can be more and more questioned. (Especially from a Palestinian point of view.)” So he suggests that supporting the current Israeli regime is becoming more and more morally questionable. In the second quote he makes two separate statements. In the first he seems to agree with Tom: “Europeans indeed have a lot of guilt for the genocide and atrocities practised by the Germans in WWII.” But he adds: “However, I believe that you don't gain a right to practice atrocities by receiving them. Even atrocities on a different scale and certainly not against people who did not have anything to do with it.”

So both Tom and his opponent argue in terms of a collective European responsibility and guilt of Europeans for the Shoah, although they draw different consequences from it.

I disagree with this extended responsibility, extended first from the perpetrators and collaborators to all individuals living in the same part of the world, and second from those active in WW2 to the present population of Europe. Should I, a child during the war, refrain from criticising, say, phosphor bombing in Gaza, or olive tree destruction by settlers in the Occupied Territories, Tom? And should I feel ‘a lot of guilt for the genocide and atrocities practised by the Germans in WWII’, Johnny?

What I oppose, then, is the use of collectivity nouns in moral arguments. And I also oppose generalized moral statements on the qualities, positive or negative, of large scale population categories, whether based on nationality, race, religion and/or ethnicity. Nationalism and other ‘groupisms’ are a major pest in the history of humanity.

Over to you, whatever the category you identify with. leave comment here