First word! And of course it's a complicated one. We couldn't have "wine" or "family"?
When I first started thinking about the word "nomothetic," and the idea of trying to name or describe something in vague, universal terms, I thought about the existence of national identities, and how calling someone "French" or "American" can come with a lot of baggage. Is it possible to name all of the members of a society with one word? When you give a name to a group of people, are you helping to unite them, or is it an oversimplification that allows for too many generalities and prejudices?
Maybe I wouldn't have been better off with "wine" or "family." Calling a jug of fermented grapes "French wine" doesn't say anything about vinticulture, and how can you talk about American families when people like the Duggars or the Kardashians are the most famous families in America?
In any case, the word definitely set something off in me. How do I, as an "American," talk about the "French"?
Nomothetic is the opposite of idiothetic (or idiographic), which is studying or explaining individual events. If I were to make a general, universal statement about French and American identities (Hey! Nomothetic!), I'd say that metropolitan France favors nomothetic statements about national identity, while the United States favors idiographic statements. Being French means being like other French people, and being American is just geographic. In fact, if you ask most Americans where their family is "originally" from, they're proud to tell you every nationality of every ancestor. (Mine were Scottish, Austrian, and Russian, for the record.)
From what I have experienced, the French are proud of their French heritage and culture, and try to preserve their French identity through various means, such as trying to clean up modern French language and funding French artists. If you are an educated French speaker today, you won't have much of a problem reading a 500 year old essay, whereas most American college students need some help reading a work from the same period. As a country founded by immigrants, we value change, and are open to language evolution. The problem today is whether or not this nomothetic French identity will make it through globalization.
Immigration in France today is a loaded topic, and one that most Americans find hard to understand. In one French class I took, the American students had a hard time discussing immigration issues with our French professor. A few French articles we read said that many French people were worried that too many Muslim immigrants would change France into an Islamic state, and that teaching Arabic in schools would put the French language at risk. Arguments for immigration said that the idea of preserving the French identity meant protecting white, Catholic, native French people as the majority.
For American students who are here thanks to immigrants, it's hard to think of immigration ruining a country. We hear some arguments against immigrants in the U.S., but these people are easily written off as ignorant or racist. Being an American is inherently pluralistic, and preserving our American identities means encouraging many cultures to coexist. We suggested that French culture could live alongside new, immigrant cultures, and that laws banning veils in schools or limiting immigration numbers didn't make sense. Our professor said that we didn't understand. We thought that the "French" identity they were trying to protect was nomothetic, exclusionary and archaic, and that identities should be seen as pluralistic and inclusive.
Still not sure if any of us were right.
For American students who are here thanks to immigrants, it's hard to think of immigration ruining a country. We hear some arguments against immigrants in the U.S., but these people are easily written off as ignorant or racist. Being an American is inherently pluralistic, and preserving our American identities means encouraging many cultures to coexist. We suggested that French culture could live alongside new, immigrant cultures, and that laws banning veils in schools or limiting immigration numbers didn't make sense. Our professor said that we didn't understand. We thought that the "French" identity they were trying to protect was nomothetic, exclusionary and archaic, and that identities should be seen as pluralistic and inclusive.
Still not sure if any of us were right.
