Christoph,
I'm glad you've replied to this because I think I'd rather brushed you off
regarding how one would classify Switzerland. Since I wrote last I'm now
unsure as to whether Switzerland could be regarded as a nation-state in the
fullest meaning of the term. What characterises a nation-state more than
anything (IMHO) is a large and autocratic civil service which is fairly
independent from the politicians (who come and go), and I'm not so sure
that Switzerland has this. How does the size of the civil service in
Switzerland compare with other advanced countries? With all the different
languages, is the civil service unified and heirarchic? (It is tremendously
so in the UK, Germany and France)
At 00:49 29/07/99 +0200, you wrote:
>On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Keith Hudson wrote:
>> To this extent there is a global culture. Nevertheless,
>> cultural diversity may be growing. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong
>> places for it. For the active, curious, intelligent 30% of the population
>> there have never been as many different sorts of specialist organisations
>> as today. For example, in Bath 50 years ago there was only one choir (that
>> is, a secular choral society as opposed to church choirs). Today, even
>> though there hasn't been any significant growth in the number of active
>> singers, there are over 20 choirs -- each one with a different type
>> repertoire.
>
>It's clear that 4 years after WWII, the people of Bath had more basic things
>to do than singing in a choir... Also, I would suggest that the increase in
>opportunities is largely due to technology and increased leisure-time.
To some extent this is correct. There are quite a lot of retired people in
Bath who make up these choirs. I'm not so sure about the effect of
technology, though. I don't think this increases leisure time particularly
-- in my experience it tends to use it more intensively at the expense of
other activities.
>The question is, are the 20 choirs of Bath much different from the 20 choirs
>of other towns ?
Not really. However, since starting my choral music business two years ago
and getting to know a little more about choral singing in other countries,
I am intrigued by just how parochial choirs are -- despite the apparent
internationality of choral singing. For example, I recently organised a
visit of the Moscow University Choir to this country and they had never
heard of many extremely well-known English composers. The same applies to
choirs of other countries. A German conductor recently had never heard of
Elgar, for example.
(KH)
>> Yes, one can always find examples (particularly in the US where there is
>> such a well-developed lobby system) where some industries have got an
>> inside track with government departments and are able to persuade the
>> government to help them with subsidies, protection from imports, etc. But,
>> by and large, most business steers away from involvement with government,
>> even from asking favours, because as soon as they do so, civil servants
>> start meddling in their affairs.
>
>I guess the larger problem is that it's increasingly *vice-versa* --
>corporations are meddling in the state's affairs... so they don't steer
>away from it, but actively meddle more and more (not only in the U$ -- just
>think of the thousands of industry lobbyists in Bruxelles..).
As I've already suggested, there'll always be some industries which want to
benefit from preferential treatment by their government and will make
overtures. This is particularly so in Brussels -- or has been so until
recently, anyway. The European Commissioners has been handing out so many
favours in recent years (as a sort of bribe to mover public opinion in
favour of the EC) that not only do thousands of firms queue up to receive
special grants but many spurious companies are invented purely for the
purpose of receiving EC money. The amount of food, for example, that's
shipped backwards and forwards across frontiers just in order to receive
subsidies (and sometimes both ways) is nobody's business and amounts to
billions (pounds, dollars, euros< etc) every year.
>> (CR)
>> >Please don't confuse "nation-state" with "imperialist state".
>>
>> I think it's being pedantic to differentiate between "nation-state" with
>> "imperialist state". Whether a country is inimical to its domestic
>> populations or to both its domestic populations and foreign ones, either
>> state is undesirable.
>
>The question is whether this nation-state is "inimical to its domestic
>populations" in the first place. You're right, though, that an imperialist
>state is likely to be inimical to both its domestic populations and foreign
>ones...
>
>Anyway, the problem of our time is that *corporations* are increasingly
>inimical to populations...
No, I don't agree with this in the conspiratorial sense. By and large, and
increasingly so, large corporations seek to satisfy their customers. There
are, of course, some rogue companies, even large ones, but by and large
they reflect the value systems of their own customers.
>> What seems to be happening is that everybody is learning English -- that
>> takes care of globalisation; but also speaking their own language -- and
>> this, of course, may be a regional or local language and not the official
>> one.
>
>In my region, the "second language" that people once learned was the
>language of their neighboring region. Now it is English. This means
>that neighbors won't communicate with each other in the native language
>of one of them, but in English, which is a foreign language for both of
>them. This will increase the "misunderstandings" and decrease the sense
>of community among neighbors.
Interesting! I can understand that this will "decrease the sense of
community among neighbors" -- but how much of this was there anyway? That
is, say, between the German- and French-speaking regions. I'm sure they
both thought of themselves as Swiss but just how much do they think of
themselves as regional? I think that people in such a federal system don't
think consciously about this very much. For example, Scottish and Welsh
people in the UK -- when questioned -- have always thought of themselves as
Scottish or Welsh rather than British, but the English, until recently,
would have been puzzled by a similar question. The nationalistic political
propaganda of the last 100 years or so, which was primarily aimed at the
Scottish and Welsh populations actually only worked on the English. Even
so, it hasn't worked very well because, sice the rise of Scottish and Welsh
nationalism, and the foundation of their Parliament and Assembly
respectively, the English have suddenly discovered that they're English --
something very very few (1 in 1,000 probably) were aware of until recently.
This new feeling of Englishness has not been recently recreated but was
simply lying dormant. (Until now, there have been only one or two new
political parties or pressure groups which describe themselves as English
Nationalist, but in all cases they have been, or are, pretty crude affairs,
and have not made any inroads into the mnore thoughtful population.)
Keith
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
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