Ethno-Cultural Concept Of American Identity

1. The Ethno-cultural Concept proposed by Anthony Smith.
According to this concept European identity can be developed in the same way as it was in the case of national identities, through common heritage, culture, tradition, language, myths and symbols. Furthermore Smith argues that there is a European "family of cultures" made up of samples of certain cultural heritage and historical traditions. Final step is to transform this "family" into self-sustained European identity, which is not rationally constructed and unexpected. Some channels might be European mass tourism, European music festival, but possibilities for public education system and mass media are still determined dominantly by national priorities. It is criticized as a hard and probably impossible task. Due to the fact that member states are different, their economic and geopolitical factors and that European project lacks of emotional sustenance and historical depth , we could easily …show more content…
They start their search about the European identity usually by referring to the lacks of the previous concept. Habermas attacks the ethno cultural concept on two fronts- conceptual and empirical. He says that “a nation of citizens must not be confused with a community of fate shaped by common heritage”. To prove his standings about the civic concept as an opposite from the ethno cultural, he also emphasizes that it (civic concept) “reflects both the actual historical path of the European nation-states and the fact that democratic citizenship establishes an abstract, legally mediated solidarity between strangers”. Finally, as the base of his idea about the civic concept, Habermas claims that modern democracy and the nation-state have developed together, with out priority of latter. Rather this was circular process in which they stabilized each other and produced innovations of civic solidarity and provides "the cement of national societies