Nations comparable to America?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

On mobile, so verbiage, formatting, and grammar may be subpar.

In any case, I've been rethinking the concept of "America" overall; while we are situated in the Western tradition, we are not really comparable to Europe in regards to our social history on a whole host of dimensions. We are a settler nation with a past rooted in slavery that is very much still with us today. By the standards of our ideals--and this likely holds true for all nations--we have fallen far short. As such, maybe judging us by some European or Western "standard" is inappropriate in many respects. Are there nations with similar contentious and often ugly histories that we may judge as our contemporaries? One I had thought of, perhaps lazily, was Russia. While sociologically very different, we share pasts as expansionist nations which resulted in actions that would be deemed regrettable by modern standards; in one case regarding the American Indian, in another the peoples of Central Asia. In both cases, racialist agendas were implemented for reasons of social control and, perhaps, function. Is there, perhaps, some motley cohort of nations we are more readily compared to vis-a-vis our settler status, our recurrent social dysfunction, our immigrant communities, and our (perhaps manufactured) ideology committed to some sense of destiny?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Also, I just realized, Russia abolished serfdom at around the time the US abolished slavery, and I believe some US abolitionists looked to that as inspiration. I'll have to research that part a little bit more.

I'd noted the near-simultaneous occurrence as well. While skimming around Cassius M. Clay's* Wikipedia page, I noted Clay does seem to have been inspired by the emancipation, telling Lincoln in 1862 that he would only fight if the President promised to emancipate the slaves. Incidentally, it appears that Alexander II vowed to enter the war should Britain and France intercede on behalf of the Confederacy. Rather perplexing that as illiberal and agrarian a country as Russia would fall on the side of ending slavery and promoting industrial capitalism (in this isolated instance). I'd be forced to speculate that it might be related to the cotton trade; it was the Civil War that spurred the Russians toward Central Asia, and Uzbekistan is still a significant source of cotton, as I recall. This might be attributing false motives, however.

*Not the boxer

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Also, holy sh#t.

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