ABSTRACT
In a large and diversified system, or a civilization, ethnicity is contained but not abolished. The genius of the Greeks has given us the terms ethnos and demos, denoting fundamental differences in the nature of social cohesion. In Homeric writing, both ethnos and demos meant group, but different kinds of group. Ethnicity, then, refers to an enlarged sense of kin, a feeling of belonging beyond purposive striving or fleeting attachments. To ethnic nationalities, based on kin, are contrasted demotic nationalities, based on territories. In the wake of the Roman example, which was essentially political in nature, arose modern territorial nationalism, especially in post-medieval France. The Jews are a foremost example of an ethnic group in which religion and ethnicity are merely two sides of the same thing. The essentially identical problem of ethnicity versus territoriality has manifested itself differently in the Soviet Union, in India, in Africa, and finally in Western Europe.
