Over the past two decades, we have increasingly heard this concept. It occurs with enviable consistency in the speeches of public people, public discussions and discussions about the existing problems of the state and people. Very often we associate the term with an extreme form of nationalist sentiment. However, the term “chauvinist” is a somewhat broader concept. Interesting that
it comes from the name of a person who was a veteran of the Napoleonic army. His name was Nicolas Chauvin. This soldier so stubbornly and fanatically defended Bonaparte's ideas of the greatness of France (even after the fall of the latter) that his name later became a household name. Since that time, the chauvinist is a man categorically supporting the ultranationalist idea of the complete superiority of one nation over all others. Today, this concept is usually used in conjunction with national definitions. In the conditions of the Russian Federation, Russian chauvinists most often declare themselves. At the same time, if this concept is examined more carefully, then we can see that today it extends much wider than the national framework.
Public sphere
In the modern world, a chauvinist is a person who truly supports the ideas of absolute superiority, but they can be projected onto completely different
public categories. One way or another, we all came across the concept of male chauvinism. It can also manifest itself in relation to children, the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and so on. All such forms are always accompanied by deliberate discrimination.
Chauvinism. Definition in biology
However, this concept does not always necessarily imply something related to violations of human rights. So-called species discrimination takes place. A similar term refers to the infringement of the interests of a species for the sake of another. The most striking example here, perhaps, is the relationship of the human species with the animal world. However, the concepts of natural rights can hardly be transferred to the latter, since animals have neither
consciousness, no will. Therefore, discrimination here is used in a slightly different meaning.
Interestingly, there is also such a thing as carbon chauvinism. It does not at all relate to discrimination in any form or application, and belongs to the field of cosmosologists. A carbon chauvinist is a person who affirms the fundamental impossibility of any life forms based on non-carbon. The fact is that absolutely all known life forms on planet Earth are carbon in the sense that they have this element as their own fundamental basis. In addition, we all consist of the same substances that are most widely distributed in the Universe: hydrogen, carbon, and so on. This factor has affirmed among many modern cosmobiologists and astrophysicists the opinion that if extraterrestrial life forms are found, they must also be built from the same compounds. Assumptions about a fundamentally different biochemistry (for example, with silicon as the basis), look very doubtful today.
