Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: The German poet Heinrich Heine wrote a famous poem that begins as some- thing like "Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht" (When I think of Ger- many, at night).His attitude, more than his poem, describes well my predicament and my topic.I say his attitude, not his poem, because the poem talks about Germany and about what, according to Heine, Germany is.I will have a few things to say about what I think his attitude is later on.However, I have almost nothing to say about the poem or, rather, about what countries are.Allow me then to briefly get it off my chest.I am not a believer in any kind of profession of faith in a country's identity, certainly not in my own.Nor do I think that by telling you who I really am I might save myself the embarrassment of further justifying my claims.Telling who you really are is telling who you think you are, and what you think is only what you think.Identity-talk is like wearing some kind of baseball cap or local costume and then imagining that similar caps correspond to similar thoughts, desires, and beliefs.People who talk in this way think, by implication, that only those who wear similar caps are capable of understanding whatever they do or think.The only demeanor that seems appropriate to them is a form of diffuse ethnological admiration for everyone else that does not require any kind of commitment: it costs nothing and brings nothing in return.I am puzzled by decorous agnosticism.Having opinions about caps, cos- tumes, or neighbors does not amount to genocide proper.My reservations
DOI: 10.62791/nqtngk02
Author: Miguel Tamen
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4401024398