Transcript
A threads post saying “There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America’s 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that’s already been said.” It has a reply saying “My local pub is older than your country”.
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Yea there are a few buildings in my area that have been there for more than 250 years.
Egypt, anyone?
Rome lasted for 2,000 years because I consider the Byzantines as true Romans.
Depending on who you ask, some might even say that Rome still IS
ROMA INVICTA
nation is a construct based on race and culture. nation is artificial, think it like a club. if you have a citizenship means you are included to nation but it doesnt mean to you are a part of race or culture. for more reading like there is a science branch called sociology!
Social science. Nothing written there is accepted as facts.
There’s plenty of areas in this world where multi cultural people live with eachother and view eachother of the same nationality.
USA is probably the best example of this, because it lacks an original culture.
But I gotta admit, it’s difficult to convince lots of diaspora that they are Belgian even though they are fucking born here lol
you commented like you didn’t read half of my comment, again “nation” is construct if you keep using as term “race” it will keep confusing too. humans understands on naming on classification if you always act relative or mix terms all around we cant have a conversation, i am not saying accept my “terms” but we need to have a base or fundamental to speak or understand each other
What do you want to talk about? We don’t need terms. Get rid of the terms. What in society is bothering you.
Terms are unnecessary. Use synonyms, use whatever. Explain it fluently as if I’m a quite young person. Like I would explain accountancy to you while trying to avoid the situation of you telling me that I’m talking Chinese to you.
The only base we need, is that in social science, you cannot take authority. There are no facts. One group of people can act completely different than another group of people, even though everything is exactly the same beside the people themselves. Their personalities will alter quite a lot already.
So let’s talk about what you want to talk about.
ok.
Uhu
Wait till these people find out about Japan.
I mean sure they’ve still got a royal line, but the royal family wasn’t always in power. Like is it fair to say that the Tokugawa government is the same as the meiji restoration government, is the same as the modern government?
Like is it fair to say that the Tokugawa government is the same as the meiji restoration government, is the same as the modern government?
The Edo Period alone spanned 268 years. The Heian Period nearly made it to 400.
Even if you evaluate these as distinct, they individually outstip the US.
That’s absolutely true! I just didn’t want it to seem like Japan was some sort monolith of unbroken rule.
You’re conflicting state and nation I think. Both are also pretty loose terms. Nations didn’t really exist before nationalism in the 1800s and states are just big ships of thesiii
I was thinking more along the lines of governmental continuity, which has just as arbitrary lines. But less arbitrary in some cases like conquest or dynastic change. Like there was something that happened between Julius Caesar and Agustus. The line isn’t super clear, but the Republican government and the empire definitely have some key differences even if the Senate was never really disolved.
But I remember Louis XIV saying something like “I die, but the state remains”. So I think in some proto form “the state” or something larger than just the ruler has existed on and off throughout history.
And fucking China.
China gets a bit fuzzier in between dynasties and revolutions. But there are definitely multiple post-Unification dynasties that lasted longer than 250 years.
What about San Marino?
Absolutely.
I used to be in the record business, and worked for a time for a Chinese record company who was releasing indigenous folk and classical music.
Western music traces back about 1000-1200 years, while Chinese music has an unbroken written musical tradition going back several thousands of years.
You guys think it’s bad reading all this online?
Try living here…
I bet outside of the US they have a very different perspective of what it’s like living here right now.
Specifically, the fact that things like some of our largest protests ever aren’t even being covered inside the states. There are huge public displays thousands and thousands of people being completely ignored by media. I wonder what else we’re not being allowed to see here.
I’ve been saying this right from the beginning, but this is a war on information.
Felon 45 and the right are going to do everything they possibly can to make sure word doesn’t get out
It probably has a more stable foundation too!
I believe the ottoman empire (1299–1922) would like a word.
There’s a certain irony that there are a couple of cases of “my local pub is older than your entire country” in the country in question. For example the White Horse Tavern in Newport, RI.
Remember the time we stumbled on an old local church with an American coworker. Yes dude, that thing was over 500 years old when Columbus discovered your continent, allegedly.
Columbus didn’t even travel to north america, he went to middle- and south america :D
Everything north of the Darien Gap is considered NA.
TIL Central America is considered a sub-region of North America
As a continent, yes
Look at it on a world map, one without border lines, and it’s blindingly obvious. It’s not a sub-region, it’s part of a large land mass barely separated from a large land mass to the south.
And he didn’t discover shit. He was a bloody wanker and we should all just forget about him
And he wasn’t just an asshole by modern standards, but by the standards of his own time as well!
England would like a word. It formed in 927 AD. That means it is 1,098 years old.
This isn’t a facepalm. As any red-blooded American knows, the only country worth mentioning is America. Since all countries of note were founded after America, this OP is correct.
LoL. There was a comment today from somebody (in Canada) that mentioned “the time in Canada” as if there weren’t multiple provinces in different time zones.
Self-centered exceptionalism isn’t just an American thing, though they may be louder about it in many cases.
When it comes to self-centered exceptionalism, USA is #1!
So, Ireland is of note, but England isn’t?
I grieve for the death of sarcasm.
Culturally, Ireland is of great importance to the US. From the humble shamrock shake, all the way up to Lucky Charms, we owe a lot of debt to Ireland.
Meanwhile, we’ll never forgive England for the Boston Tea Party. Look at how few Americans drink tea to this day and you’ll see the level of contempt.
Who did the US get independence from, buddy?
The Kingdom of Great Britain, which ceased to exist in 1800 and lasted less than a century.
Use the same definition (unchanged political institutions) and tell me how long the Roman Empire lasted.
Best I can find is about 500 years.
You have to add all these together to include coups and hostile takeovers or divide it to hilariously short periods.
I think that was the point of the original poster. I mean, they were wrong, but I find a lot of the comments in this thread hilariously more wrong in their self-righteous response.
The was also a kingdom period in Rome’s earlier times. But that’s ancient history, am i rite?
(I’ll let myself out)
Well there’s that… but these people are free from the restraints of logic.
They think of countries as dynasties or times of uninterrupted, peaceful transitions of power. Britain has changed dynasties and government types over the years. It’s semantics.
France, Switzerland, england, bavaria, brandenburg, vatican, spain, netherlands, denmark, sweden, portugal
I could go on and on
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A ha ha ha ha Sweden is fouded in 1994 🤣😂 ouch my stomach hurts! What the hell 😁 I mean at least make it 1894 or something.
I don’t remember anything special in 94?? Maybe we got a borglig regering? But with that logic the USA is only some months old lol.
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Oh I can almost see the logic - It’s like an append-only log, you only add to it, the original text is still original
Except amendments can override existing parts, so in reality, the US was born May 7th 1992 and judging by its age and personality, was likely a Vine star for a while.
We got a name for that kind of logic from where I come from.
It translates roughly to “stupid”.
I’ll bet not 1 American in 100 know that there was a time when Sweden was a dominant superpower in Europe.
San Marino
Anything outside of Europe?
Japan, tibet, mongolia, iran, ethiopia, mali, kongo, thailand
I feel this isn’t quite the same though. When a country has a complete change in politics/ruling of the nation, then it really isn’t the same country anymore. (French Revolution ending in 1799 shouldn’t be still considered the same country, even though the name is the same. England still allowed the royal family to have power over the people and politics until 1957 so wasn’t a “full” democracy, Bavaria I became part of Germany in 1949, etc…) The US has for its entire time listed has always been an elected government that followed the constitution, meaning it’s been the same country.
So you mean the usa never modernise? Checks out…
Total rubbish. In the 1700s only landowners could vote. Truly universal suffrage wasn’t enshrined until 1965, so by your reckoning America is only 60 years old.
Changes of government don’t mean an entirely new country, there’s continuity like how France refers to the 1st republic or the current 5th republic. It’s still France.
Exactly. By that logic, every time a new political party takes over, America is a new country.
Although, with MAGA taking power, and completely throwing out the Constitution, the case can be made that we have become a new country.
Changes of government don’t mean an entirely new country…
Yeah, it kinda does. The words "Country’ and “Nation” aren’t full synonyms even though people tend to use them interchangeably. A a Country is a political entity while a Nation is focused on the collective identity and shared values of its people.
In short the Nation of France is old while the Country of France is much younger.
The definitions honestly feel backward to me but I’m not the person in charge of these things.
That’s just semantics, not any practical distinction.
Do you feel there is no “practical distinction” between 1730 France and 1930 France?
It’s like saying there’s no practical distinction between Red and Scarlet. The fact that they are different is why there are separate words. Its the same with Country and Nation.
Pointless argument. Is there no difference between the US in 1776 and now? Every country is changing constantly. Because they’re full of people.
In the 1700s only landowners could vote.
White, male landowners - I’m just guessing here.
Obviously
You’re entirely right but Bavaria became a part of Germany in 1871.
Sorry about that, I just had done a quick check on Wikipedia which declared (and I quickly accepted):
joined the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871 while retaining its title of kingdom, and finally became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
You’re talking about “a country”, the guy in the OP talks about “a nation”. Pretty vast difference between the two.
You are basing that on the Constitution, which has changed considerably over America’s history.
Arguably, I believe America is the oldest constitutional nation.
well that ended pretty recently unfortunately
most other countries still have their constitution though
San Marino had a constitution in 1600, was a republic a lot longer than that, and it’s still an independent republic. So it’s very arguable
TIL that is even a country
It’s a small one, but if you’re ever in Italy, it might warrant a visit (depending on time and route). The medieval old town built on top of mount Titan is really beautiful and the view from the walls is breathtaking.
Your American education is showing.
A while ago I mentioned to a German friend that I was visiting Andorra and he asked me where that was. I bet there are plenty of Europeans who don’t know where San Marino is either.
Even british constitutionalism is older
“Even”?
That would be San Marino.
vatican
I’ll spot you at least a few of these. But the Vatican was incorporated in 1929 precisely because they needed to delineate between the Italian city of Rome and the Bishopry of the Catholic Church. Italy wasn’t a fully unified country until about a decade earlier.
It was a fully unified country way before 1929, unless you are counting Alto Adige and Trieste as conditio sine qua non to have a fully unified Italy, which I wouldn’t.
As for the Vatican situation, the Italian kingdom completely conquered and annexed the papal state in 1870 (Breccia di Porta Pia).
In 1929 the Pope formed an alliance with Mussolini to get a state in exchange for the approval of the fascist government from the Church (and other stuff, but that’s the gist of it)
It was a fully unified country way before 1929, unless you are counting Alto Adige and Trieste as conditio sine qua non to have a fully unified Italy, which I wouldn’t.
It was a confederacy of loosely associated city states which were sometimes at war with one another going on for centuries.
I know this opens up “The United States can’t claim a full 250 years on account of that frackus in the 1860s” and I’m fine with that. But I will strongly contend that when your city raises an army to try and sack your nation’s capital, you are no longer living in a historically contiguous country.
Naples up and did its own thing several times from the 18th-20th century. Nevermind how many people had to die fighting the Italian Wars of Independence.
While the US is pretty old as a state, most societies have a direct continuation from one state to the next. It’s not like when France overthrew its monarchy they stopped being France or seeing themselves as French. So they may see their continuous history as much older than the current state, with the Kingdom of France going back to 987.
The US doesn’t have a continuous history prior to 1776 because they mostly come from Britain but they denounce their British heritage and they settled in NA but also denounce the heritage of the local peoples there. So the average American sees their entire history as starting at 1776, maybe a little bit further back to include the initial colonies and that’s about it.
I am sorry, but walking property of French feudals wasn’t part of French nation.
That aside, kingly blood from year 987 has, due to arithmetics of human procreation, gotten into most people from European countries by now. So technically a modern Frenchman can associate with a king of France from 1000 years ago, if they want that. Just doesn’t make much sense.
XIX century romanticism is the problem. Everyone has learned of their nation’s long and mythologized history because of that. Everyone believes that, which to an extent makes that real. Sibelius’ music, Goethe’s poetry, Vasnetsov’s paintings, whatever. Strong aesthetic and symbolic. While German national-socialists kinda made too much of this distasteful, they’ve also made new things that came before them seem old and good. And by comparison more real.
If we do direct continuations, the US can do that with England.
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I’d give as start dates for France either the kingdom of Clovis or the treaty of Verdun of 843. 987 was just a dynastic switch: different ruling dynasty, but it was the same country before and after imo.
So the average American sees their entire history as starting at 1776
Well yeah. That’s kind of the way words work. Of course there was history before that with England. Which had history before them from France, German, Rome, etc. If we, US people, are talking about before 1776 with the colonies, that time is generally referred to as “Colonial History”
When the French stopped being a monarchy, it’s gov’t changed, the rules of law changed, it was effectively a different country. If a group of friends play football, then the next time they play basketball, they are playing different sports. Same people though.
Even more than that, the nations of rhe western hemisphere have an unusual history, because they have an actual recorded starting point. Many countries have a history that goes back to before recorded history, fading into myth.
But in 1492, more or less, suddenly there was this brand new land mass to settle, and the major western powers immediately started to claim it. A new population developed over many generations, for well over 200 years, with no real connections to Europe, other than political, and that distant rule began to chafe. Eventually they revolted and established a brand new nation, something that was a nearly non-existent concept to nations that had been established since before recorded time.
The European powers be like “What are you talking about, starting your own country? That’s not how it’s done.” And the Colonies be like “Yeah? Watch us.”
As an American, its wild to see things in other countries that are hundreds, or even thousands of years old, when almost nothing in America is older than about 300 years.
Man, you should try being an aussie. We’re simultaneously a glint in Britain’s eye and old as balls
My country is technically 124 years old, i live walking distance from a goddamn seven thousand year old farm
There is stuff older than 300 years but they mostly were destroyed by the settlers
It’s not like when France overthrew its monarchy they stopped being France or seeing themselves as French.
They didn’t even stop being a monarch (for very long). I think they’re on something like their Fifth Republic at this point, because they keep going back and doing Bourbon Restorations, cause some of them cannot stop being monarchists no matter how hard they try.
Monarchists are like the fucking hydra. Chop off a thousand heads and you somehow get two thousand more monarchists in their place. It’s bananas.
Well it’s the 5th republic as of the constitutional reform of 1958. And the 4th republic was founded in the aftermath of WW2 and Germany dissolving the French government. The 3rd republic was founded after the 2nd Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. The 2nd Empire was founded when Louis Napoleon Boneparte crowned himself emperor in 1852 and dissolved the 2nd republic. The 2nd republic was founded in 1848 after Napoleon (the other Napoleons uncle) was defeated at Waterloo ending the 1st Empire of Napoleon which lasted from 1804 to 1815 (with a brief holiday to Elba). The 1st republic was founded in the revolution of 1792 (the one with the heads being chopped off) until Napoleon seized power in a coup.
There has in fact only been one period of bourbon restoration in 1815. But since then and the 2nd Empire there has been little to no appetite for monarchy to return in France beyond a few crazed loonies.
Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again.
It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.
― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
While the state of France goes back to the Franks under king Childerich in the late 400s, the modern nation of France evolved during the French revolution and the Napoleonic era.
The very idea of “nation” as a political entity build upon ethnicity instead of loyality to a ruler is younger than 250 years, so technically the claim that the US is one of the oldest, if not the oldest nation in the world is correct. I doubt though that the person OP quoted is aware of the meaning of the word nation other than a synonym for country.
