Office meme, they’re the same picture. The world no longer needs people who are willing to die for, or equally kill for, their country
Yes if you can convince everyone in the world of this simultaneously, we’ll end all wars.
Do you think Vladimir Putin will agree with your sentiment?
Yes, but climate change, water wars and possibly a fundamental change to world order are likely. One might not get a choice, if they prefer to continue living in freedom and peace.
Doesn’t mean we need patriots though.
This is bullshit.
Even if the technical definition of “patriotism” is all of these good things, it doesn’t matter because everyone thinks it means all of those bad things.
Yeah, people try to push this patrotism = good, nationalism = bad thing, but it is meaningless, because patriotism has long since become what Reinhart Koselleck would call a “Grundbegriffe”, basically a universal term which everybody has accepted is good, but which everybody interprets and uses in a variety of different (and clashing) interpretations. It is a term you use to invoke that you are on the right side, regardless of what side you are on, because it just means “good”.
Additionally, overt patriotism is usually nationalism.
Looking at this meme in the first panel, pride in who you are eventually becomes pride in who you aren’t if you feel it strongly enough.
It’s the same picture
Both are tribalism of different levels of intensity. Our brains are predisposed for us-them mentality, some stronger than others, some can leave it behind others never will. It’s also the most exploitable feeling in the history of our species, with fear may be the close contender.
Obviously a government embracing tribalism leads to horrid shit (everyone without an armband knows it) BUT ignoring it completely allows something else snake its way into that void. If you’re lucky its something vegetarian like football hooliganism, if you-re not – pan-nationalism, religious zealotry, whatever the 4chan incel shit is, people who can’t or won’t leave tribal mentality will find a dirt to roll in.
IMHO it is worth considering implementing a civic religion a-la french republicanism. Yes it can be a gateway to nationalism, but it also lets tribal minded people wave their flags and “guard the civic values” or whatever while the rest of us continue our lives in peace. As a bonus it improves civic participation and if you’re attacked – well there’s already something for you to rally around.
fuck nationalism patriotism all that shit.
Simp for community, not a heirarchical country you were taught to fall in love with.
Community can suck too. Fuck collectivism. “Simp” for those individuals (actually, more accurately, for the good acts) who deserve it, and not a single person/act more.
K, build your own roads and public institutions then.
That’s what a country is, it’s a community but on a bigger scale.
It’s false and self serving to say all the good parts are patriotism and that’s what I do but all the bad parts are nationalism and that’s what they do.
All nation states are murderous vermin undeserving of respect. Holding any identity strongly - national, religious or ideological - can turn you into a destructive rube.
A national identity based on common positive beliefs helps to keep these beliefs viable. Leaving group identity to the right is one of the reasons why it is so strong
I can be proud that my country has free health care and still critize that the rich get better treatment
I can be proud that my country has made it clear in its constitution that every life style and religion are the same before the state while critzing that the reality dies not adhere to this ideal
While identity is differential to other groups it does not need to be excluding. I.e. everybody who shares our ideals is welcome here instead of people born here are superior to others
And you can have the identity not be in difference to an other people but e.g. another time. I am proud that germany is harder for the nazis to take over than the Weimar Republic was.
People want identity and a feeling of community and seeing that as something inherently negative os stupid and dangerously helpful to the right
A long time ago I read some post that stuck with me.
It said that some people love their country the way a child loves their parent. They’re perfect and smart and strong and can beat up your parent. They don’t have any flaws, and can do no wrong. They’re the best ever.
Other people love their country the way an adult loves a peer. They see the potential, the good, but also the flaws. They want what’s best for both of them, even if it’s uncomfortable and difficult. And ultimately, if the relationship becomes abusive, they won’t just take it.
Conservatives often are the first one, but I think they are generally more immature. Fearful, tribal, angry.
Loving your country in the second way can be okay, I think. It can be a vehicle for improvement. People have wanted to improve their living spaces and communities for longer than we’ve had recorded history. It doesn’t have to be toxic or zero-sum.
I wonder what you would define “country” as. If you want to say, “love thy neighbor” then I get you. But if you’re saying “love your government” then it doesn’t really make much sense. You’re not supposed to love the government, that’s not the point of it, that’s not what it’s here for.
And ultimately, if the relationship becomes abusive, they won’t just take it.
That’s where the analogy fails for me. You can’t leave a state unless you enter a new state, a new abusive relationship.
People have wanted to improve their living spaces and communities for longer than we’ve had recorded history.
I get when people are proud of their city or ethnicity or dialect group or religion or football club or what ever. There have always been imagined communities (communities where you don’t know everyone but feel connected due to a shared identity) and that’s what modern nation stated exploit. They creat a shared identity by lumping everything together, diminishing local differences to creat an artificial imagined community based on forced commonalities and destroy the plurality and diversity “home” could be.
Thanks for listening to my TEDtalk
Nationalism is only good when people are fighting colonialism, e.g. palestine or british era India.
“Nationalism is the best defense against invasion” is something fascists and rebellions against empires agree on.
um, no… Americocentric again
Nationalism has to do with pride in a shared cultural identity, whereas Patriotism is pride for one’s country.
in other countries, there are strong cultural ties that bond people together. shared language. a relationship to the land. hundreds if not thousands of years of history. some countries have dozens of such groups.
nationalism is a person from that group taking pride in that identity. patriotism is taking pride in your country as a whole. so for example, you can be proud to be Gujarati, and you can be proud to be Indian.
now, in the United States, there really isn’t a national identity beyond shopping malls and jingoism. so i can see how nationalism is rarely seen positively. all you get of it is nazis and fake irish frat bros.
but, no, really I think patriotism is a far bigger problem than nationalism. one’s language is your flesh and blood, it’s who you are. what the fuck does a country mean to you? the people who lock you up?
Patriotism is just a nice word people invented to be proud of their genocidal and colonialist country without feeling too bad about it.
But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.
That’s just wrong, patriotism is subjective. The word means having a sense of pride, support, or devotion to your country. However, this concept can interpreted in wildly different ways by different people. One person could think that patriotism means standing by your country right or wrong, but another person could think that patriotism means criticizing your country when it’s done wrong. Both of these are valid forms of patriotism, it’s just that one is more extreme than the other.
Don’t argue with me. Argue with Patrick O’Brien
I mean you quoted him, you clearly endorse his view.
I mean, yeah, but that’s because I read all of his books
You should do that.
Good for you I guess, my criticism of the quote still stands though
I think one interpretation of the quote that includes the possibility of a patriotism that does not exclude criticizing wrongdoing of your country is that “my country, right or wrong” does not mean “i support everything my country does”, but rather “even if i don’t support some things my country does, i’ll support my country generally”.
Precisely, the quote takes into account the existence of a patriotism able to recognize that a country can be wrong.
If your whole identity is based on the fact you where born at some location on this planet, you really need some self reflection and deprogramming
I was within these borders while I crawled out of a vagina. it’s one of my greatest achievements and I’ll base my personality on that
Patriotism is the little sibling of nationalism, and the boundaries are fluid. I will never understand why people are proud of other people’s accomplishments and make them their own. Or is it because people were shat on somewhere else in the world than everyone else? Makes absolutely no sense.
Is there anything missing from
“Or is it because people were shat on somewhere else in the world than everyone else?”
?
Nationalism has become such a no go that nationalists will call themselves patriots but it’s just a euphemism for the first
Always has been.
👨🚀🔫🏳️
Americans act like the two are separate things so they can continue to be brainwashed into being good little America #1 oorah’s.
Grow up, be proud of your own achievements, hard-work, and yourself not a fucking nation state like a little proto-fash.
Mate, I live in europe and patriotism is here, the hell you smokin?
I didn’t say there wasn’t patriotism in Europe. I said trying to paint the two as separate things is the Seppo take.
Your point on the fact you didn’t say it didn’t exist. But these are two separate things even in Europe.
