Chauvinism - what is it?

In recent years, we are increasingly confronted with this concept. It appears with surprising consistency in the speeches of politicians, in the topics of public discussions, in discussions about the problems of the country and the people. Often chauvinism and nationalism in our minds are closely intertwined. Some people consider them synonymous. Chauvinism - what is it? Let's try to figure it out.

It is interesting that the term itself comes from the name of the veteran of the Napoleonic wars, Nicolas Chauvin. Bonaparte dreamed of the world glory of France. He sought to create a militarily powerful empire, adding to it more and more State. On the altar of this glory he laid a whole generation of Frenchmen. However, even after the defeat of the emperor, despite all the sacrifices made to please his ambition, the soldiers remained fanatically loyal to him. One of them, the aforementioned Nicolas Chauvin, so blindly and persistently defended Napoleon, categorically not perceiving the arguments of reality, that his name became a household name. Chauvinism began to mean ultranationalist views, based on the idea of the superiority of one nation over others.

Russian chauvinism (French, German or any other) in this sense represents the most radical and aggressive direction of nationalism. As for the latter, its definitions today are rather vague: from the self-identification of a person and a group of people with a certain nation (a sense of unity of purpose and historical path), to the manifestation of an all-consuming love for this nation and, in this connection, manifestations of aggression against people of another Nationalities with a different color of skin, a cut of the eyes and so on. If we continue to study the meaning of the term, it turns out that today it is used in other areas not related to interethnic relations.

Chauvinism - what is it in the social plan?

Along with the manifestation of intolerance and aggression against people of a different nationality, we all faced the manifestation of chauvinism towards people of a different sex. Most often, men show it towards women. In addition, some social categories of people show it in relation to other categories. Often, intolerance is accompanied by conscious discrimination, which, as we know, can exist with regard to disabled people, those who have not reached a certain age limit and those who have certain political convictions.

Chauvinism - what is it in biology?

There is also the so-called species discrimination, where one species infringes on the interests of another species, being convinced of its own species superiority and priority of its interests. Quite simply, such chauvinism is definitely manifested by man in relation to animals. Interesting is also the phenomenon of carbon chauvinism. What it is? Here, discrimination has nothing to do with it. This kind of chauvinism belongs to the field of cosmology and the search for extraterrestrial life. The fact is that all forms of life studied by modern scientists on earth are basically carbon. Moreover, all biological organisms of our planet consist of the same substances that are most common in the universe (hydrogen, oxygen and so on). This determines the popularity among modern scientists of the idea that extraterrestrial life forms must also consist of these compounds. And assumptions about some other forms, based on silicon, for example, by some scientists are categorically rejected. This led to the emergence of the concept of "carbon chauvinism".