Ask Lemmy

For decades, most of my life, the streets to avoid walking down, or pubs to visit, are those that year round, hang outlarge Union Jacks (UK flag) and especially those that exhibit the St Georges flag (England flag]. To many here the St Georges flag is sadly synonymous with Right wing thugs.

It's literally a sin. Stop it.

I don't attribute anthropomorphism to a country. Improve your environment(mental/physical/emotional), help others; systems of government can come and go.

Id rather be happy than loyal to a fault.

anthropomorphism /ăn″thrə-pə-môr′fĭz″əm/

noun

Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

The representation of the Deity, or of a polytheistic deity, under a human form, or with human attributes and affections.

The ascription of human characteristics to things not human.

It’s what the Olympics are for

first off, we need to drop this false dichotomy between arbitrary words like patriotism and nationalism. it's not as simple as "good vs bad" or "moderate vs excess". you're talking about two completely different points of pride.

nationalism is pride in a shared identity between people; patriotism is pride in the state of a country. and you ask for my opinion: both are bullshit.

I like how someone referenced schopenhauer. I prefer Sartre. In "antisemite and jew" he wrote about how the bigot, by putting down another group, instantly promotes himself into a group of the chosen ones, the good guys -- all without doing anything.

that's what pride in a group identity often does. elevates yourself based on the accomplishments of others. it's a substitute for character.

HOWEVER we cannot dismiss all collective pride this way. when a group we actually belong to and contribute to actually does something good, why not be proud of it? the trouble is, the more people you involve in this collection, the less any single individual needs to actually DO to contribute.

that's why I honestly believe nationalism is less toxic than patriotism: because there can be many smaller groups (nationalism) within a country (patriotism).

the anarchist perspective is that a nation is a PEOPLE and the state is a parasite. patriotism is pride in the state, not the people. why be proud of tapeworms?

National pride can be a dead end in liberation or, when, as Otto Bauer argued, applied rationally towards the end of liberation, a means by which the proletariat of the nation can gain access to and ownership of the national wealth.

"Scholarship is able to explain to us the emergence of the national sentiment from national consciousness, the emergence of the curious national form of evaluation from the national sentiment. But it is also able to criticize this national evaluation. And this is a task of no little significance. For it is only the critique of national ideology that can produce the atmosphere of sobriety that alone makes a fruitful examination of national politics possible."

A national consciousness emerges when we meet people from other nations. We then become aware of that feature and gain a national sentiment or pride. An evaluation of the national form creates a good member of the national. This can, without critically or rationally evaluating it, lead to racist thinking or blaming certain groups for the nation's ills. However, a class evaluation can prevent this and a rational critique of the nation can give the proletariat access to the full cultural wealth of the nation which had only been previously reserved for the elites.

Patriotism is really good to have, as one loves it's country and will defend it, but also sees its issues and tries to address them in some constructive way.

This is not to be confused with Nationalism, where the thought that your country is the only richeous one and all others are shit to the point you feel superior to the citizens of other nations and don't want to admit the issues of your country or fix them in any way.

Note: These are loosely based interpretations from me as its 3:30am and I cannot sleep.

Das ist verboten

Pride in your country/state/etc is ok, nationalism is not. The US only knows indoctrination and nationalism. Canada is a little better about it with their buy Canadian movement, imo

It ain't worth a damn to me. Maybe if your country doesn't suck lol. There truly are things about my country I love. In some ways, we're the best in the world. An American can be white, black, asian, hispanic, arab or anything else really. It's a very beautiful thing to me. I find it deeply depressing that those in power want to strip this country of what makes it great. Also having no social safety net is not acceptable obviously. There's far more I can shit on this country of mine for than I can praise it for right now. I sincearly hope that changes. I'd like to be proud to be American. I've always wanted that. Sadly, it's never been a reality for me and millions of other Americans.

It's fine. Community is natural.

The problem comes when it stops being about what you love and starts being about what you hate.

Its crucial for a nation to have. Its good for citizens to unify around goals and achievements but to much can lead to a big head and losing the ability to accurately self reflect and self asess.