For quite some time I was suspicious about the idea of patriotism and now I pretty much despise it.
Main problem with patriotism is that by itself it offers no guidelines or safeguards. It is just about blind support of "what's ours" and "us versus them".
Your vision of your nation core values might be fine but for society in general this can change over time. It is not like Hitler always ruled Germany but at some point it became patriotic to follow him and those who resisted (or even questioned) became traitors.
Patriots were in KKK and they were in Soviet NKVD. Nazis of all breeds are patriots. All wars are fought by patriots of their respective sides. Patriots made 9/11 happen. Almost every act of terror or atrocity is seen as patriotic by someone.
This is why I would rather reject patriotism outright and stand for specific values and ideals, not abstract "serving the nation".
#JustSaying #thoughts #patriotism
Main problem with patriotism is that by itself it offers no guidelines or safeguards. It is just about blind support of "what's ours" and "us versus them".
Your vision of your nation core values might be fine but for society in general this can change over time. It is not like Hitler always ruled Germany but at some point it became patriotic to follow him and those who resisted (or even questioned) became traitors.
Patriots were in KKK and they were in Soviet NKVD. Nazis of all breeds are patriots. All wars are fought by patriots of their respective sides. Patriots made 9/11 happen. Almost every act of terror or atrocity is seen as patriotic by someone.
This is why I would rather reject patriotism outright and stand for specific values and ideals, not abstract "serving the nation".
#JustSaying #thoughts #patriotism
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Nora Qudus
•V. T. Eric Layton
•pianomad
•Since "patriotism" is a gentler word than "nationalism", many find it less offensive. I always use the term "nationalism" in discussion, if someone decides to challenge my lack of "patriotism".
Nanook
•pianomad
•Nanook
•V. T. Eric Layton
•In the above case, patriotism is simple used as propaganda. The screams of stadiums full of people yelling U S A, U S A, U S A gives me the heebee-geebees.
Sorry... I'm a child of the Vietnam War Era. I saw this up close and personal. I saw how the government manipulated the populace to believe that the U.S. was actually doing something good in Southeast Asia. It was ALL a LIE.
Nanook
•BR 549 ☎ likes this.
V. T. Eric Layton
•"...what I believe is best for my country [and the entire world]..."
Nanook
•Both communism and capitalism are systems that are widely abused, in different ways. Both are flawed, and I think neither is going to work at least in a pristine state into the future.
The problem with communism I see is really two fold, one it's not automatic, it requires constant intervention to balance supply and demand. The other is that although it always starts with the goal of equal, the leaders always end up being more equal than everyone else. Generally it only insures universal poverty. Also when you have government control, you don't have individual freedom and liberty.
Capitalism works to automatically balance supply and demand but that only works when you don't have monopolies. The Sherman anti-trust act was meant to address that but neither party enforces it. But a problem with capitalism in the longer term is that as we become increasingly depen... show more
Both communism and capitalism are systems that are widely abused, in different ways. Both are flawed, and I think neither is going to work at least in a pristine state into the future.
The problem with communism I see is really two fold, one it's not automatic, it requires constant intervention to balance supply and demand. The other is that although it always starts with the goal of equal, the leaders always end up being more equal than everyone else. Generally it only insures universal poverty. Also when you have government control, you don't have individual freedom and liberty.
Capitalism works to automatically balance supply and demand but that only works when you don't have monopolies. The Sherman anti-trust act was meant to address that but neither party enforces it. But a problem with capitalism in the longer term is that as we become increasingly dependent upon AI and automation, there is fewer and fewer spots for labor and concentration of wealth goes to those who own the machines.
Still without some incentive to build and maintain them they wouldn't happen.
So I think we need to invent something entirely new, I don't know what yet but I hope that public discussions, uncensored public discussions that really allow the ugliest issues, those that can't be addressed on Facebook, Twitter, etc, to be addressed, we will eventually come to a solution that works. I would like to see something that guarantees equal opportunity but not equal outcomes. Outcomes should depend upon the effort one is willing to make.
BR 549 ☎ likes this.
pianomad
•American athletes taking a knee during the national anthem.
American schoolchildren before World War II reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while doing the Bellamy Salute.
I don't know what it's like in other countries (although I suspect it's similar); at least in the U.S., patriotic grandstanding gives us a free pass to avoid hard questions
Nanook
•V. T. Eric Layton
•+1 @Robert Dinse!
V. T. Eric Layton
•V. T. Eric Layton
•pianomad
•Nanook
•Alexander
•It is certainly popular excuse for that, @pianomad, and I think this applies to many nations. Currently we have clear escalation of patriotism hype - which is especially noticeable right now as 9th of May holiday gets closer and it is when patriotic propaganda peaks.
Alexander
•All societies have elements of both. Maybe the key is in finding the right balance and working on ethics and culture in general.
Nanook
Alexander likes this.
pianomad
•@Robert Dinse I don’t disagree with your sentiment; I just think there’s a different category it can be placed, one that isn’t as sullied by all the injustices that have taken place under patriotism’s cause.
Alexander
•However it seems that everything good people do out of patriotism can also be inspired by other ideals. E.g. when disaster strikes you can help victims because they are your compatriots - or you can do the same because of compassion, kindness or simply uniting for collective survival.
But when something bad is fueled by patriotism - e.g. people are fired up for unnecessary war conflict - it always seems to me that it would be much harder or completely unlikely to happen without this sort of propaganda.
Nanook
•Alexander
•But I think that if we want to understand why these injustices happened it is important to get motivation of ordinary people who were involved. And yes, it is easy to just fall back to labels instead of trying to understand tendencies.
V. T. Eric Layton
•pianomad
•Humans across the globe are behaviorally more similar than different, which makes tribal divisions so fascinating to study. From an evolutionary standpoint, tribalism figures predominantly. It would be beneficial at this stage of our evolution to keep a very close eye on our tribal instincts. From tribe to tribe, each person feels just as strongly that they are the righteous.
Were I to be born and raised in Russia rather than the U.S., my patriotism would potentially be just as strong, while being at polar opposites in terms of national objectives as those outside my borders.
Nanook
•Hans van Zijst
•And history shows us that that always leads to isolation and tension, always. I firmly believe in "united we stand", and I see "we" as mankind as a whole. A bit of national pride is fine, as long as it doesn't make you think that your tribe is any better than all the others.
I get that proud feeling when I read in the history books how our little country astounded the world when we built a dike through the sea ("Afsluitdijk") or a dam that could be closed when needed ("Oosterscheldekering"), but I realise that other people in equal situations would probably have come up with something similar.
Nanook
•Hans van Zijst
•The kind of patriotism that @Alexander talks about, it the kind where you firmly believe in your own superiority and look down on the rest.
Nanook
•Hans van Zijst
•Nanook
•BR 549 ☎
•the media and the Democrats have been pushing a lot of terminology around, labeling anyone who disagrees with them "patriot" or "white supremacist" (along with some Afro-American celebrities who are now "multiracial white supremacists"), anyhoo, I would like to take this opportunity to say I never liked Mr. Trump. Didn't watch his TV show. I think he is loud, boastful, and unrefined. But I voted for him. He is one of the few political outsiders to have made an impression in the gray putty-like stinking bureaucracy that is Washington, in my life.
I do not suffer from "TDS". So now, I am a Nazi, a patriot, and also someone who spreads "Russian disinformation" on the web, because I chat with people who are known to live somewhere in the RF.
Nanook
•BR 549 ☎ likes this.