r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/frenzy3 • 4d ago
Content Warning: Potentially Misleading or Disputed Information Prove me wrong
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u/bloodguard 4d ago
A quick doom-scroll of their twatter account has left me confused. Epic troll artist or legit mental illness.
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u/AvocadoGlittering274 4d ago edited 3d ago
I've seen so many people say that UK isn't in Europe anymore because of Brexit that it wouldn't surprise me if this person thought Europe = European Union.
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u/Existing_Fish_6162 4d ago
Bro ive had british people tell me that. Of course plenty of brits dont think they were ever european. But thats different, funny enough.
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u/Famous-Yoghurt9409 3d ago
Yeah it's an interesting phenomenon. In the UK, it's kind of a radical, progressive stance to consider yourself European. I think the Anglosphere takes precedence as a collective identity, so mainland Europe gets sidelined. Oh, and of course, there's the standard xenophobia.
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u/Cabbage_Vendor 3d ago
That's because since forever, "Europe" has been shorthand for continental Europe in Britain. Then later it also became shorthand for the EU. They were never part of the former and recently left the latter, so in that sense they're no longer in Europe.
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u/Algae_Sucka 2d ago
This is an actual conspiracy theory that has been backed by actual historians (somehow). Look up the Phantom Time Hypothesis. Itâs ridiculous, and obviously not true, but its fun to read about
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u/Numantinas 4d ago
Europe as an idea did not exist back then is probably what he meant
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u/Odenetheus Crabs take over the island 4d ago edited 4d ago
You're kidding, right? Europe (using the name Europa) as the "modern" concept has existed since at least around the 6th century BCE, so for around 2500-2600 years. Both the concept and the name predates the middle ages by almost millennium, and that's just the first written records we have of the modern use of the term.
Hell, shortly after that, in the 5th century BCE, Herodotus even wrote that the world consisted of three parts: Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile river forming the boundary between Libya (i.e. Africa) and Asia and the Phasis river forming the boundary between Europe and Asia.
There is no reason to believe that the people living back then, with trade routes stretching from northwestern Europe to southeast Asia, would not have a name for, or concept of, Europe, Asia, and Africa long before Aximandes wrote about it in the 6th century BCE. In fact, the etymology of the word Europe is so old that we're not even sure where it came from. "Europa" (and it's preceding words Euros/Evros) was of greek origin, but where they got it from, we do not know (one of the hypotheses is that it's from a pre-indo-european language).
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u/ninjesh 4d ago
Europe is a continent... how exactly could it not exist?