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The Pains of Patriotism
Johannen
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wiki wrote:Patriotism is commonly defined as love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Latin, patria, and Greek, patritha." However, "patriotism," or the love of one's country, has come to have different meanings over time. Thus, the meaning of patriotism can be highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy.
Although used in certain vernaculars as a synonym for nationalism, nationalism is not considered an inherent part of patriotism. Among the ancient Greeks, patriotism consists of notions concerning language, religious traditions, ethics, law and devotion to the common good, rather than pure identification with a nation-state. Scholar J. Peter Euben writes that for the Greek philosopher Socrates, "patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be."
I'm starting this thread because It seems to me that patriotism is now just a way of excluding others, instigating prejudices, and creating unease.
There is no longer the idea of Patriotism being a way of bettering your country through support. Now it merely gives a set of people a team with which to side against another team.
In my eyes, the idea that you care more for the welfare of a person you don't know who lives in the same country as you, than you do for someone you don't know in another country is mind boggling.
It has been a long standing idea in Wales (where I am from) that Welsh should be learned and a sense of Welsh pride and patriotism should be instigated amongst people, when all I can see this as is a way to segregate the country away from others.
Last February This article was written about how it is now believed that children should be taught to question and think about the history and the politics of the country they live in, and not just blindly back whatever the country does.
I was hoping a discussion on what people believe patriotism is now, on what they think it should be, and if they think it is a positive/negative influence (and maybe it differs according to situation) and why.
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its usually the people that are confused about it.
that and with nationalism.
patriotism is commonly used today to mean support your country in what your country does.
I believe the argument is that elements of society are encouraging that confusion among citizens. That is, some are trying to label a lack of jingoism as a lack of patriotism.
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Yes but now it seems that patriotism is associated with everyone else sucking. It's like ,"I'm an american, wich means Iraqis are all a bunch of dicks" where it used to just be, "I'm an american, and this makes me proud."
Yes, but that's always been the case. That they have a larger than usual soap box is still just residue from September 11th. Along with the number of crying eagles. On top of the fact that these sorts of things tend to be cyclical. Every generation has a Kipling or what have you. It should probably calm down in the next decade; thanks in no small part to Iraq.
At least here in America, anyway, since we're so far ahead of the curve. I don't now what those sheep fucking Welsh are going to do.
EDIT: And I certainly don't support everything this nation does. I abhor a gooood deal.
Patriotism has been warped and co opted by people who want to control the country, and not for the better. It happens everywhere. That doesn't mean it's impossible to like and be loyal your country and want to better it for everyone's good without also being a bigot and an irrational, blindly accepting nationalist.
With the Welsh, though, pride in the strange and unpronounceable language is the way to go when you really can't do much else to keep the culture alive. To me it seems like trying to save a dying language and culture by engendering pride, because if no one cares about a culture, it'll just die out, won't it? That doesn't mean that pride in Wales should come with Anti-UK resentment and cause segregation from the rest of the country. The fact that it does is not patriotism's fault inherently, though.
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that would be nationalism which as i said is also sometimes confused with patriotism but can also be defined as 'extreme patriotism'.
Given human nature, the alternative is probably not caring about either.
It's not like we are all a bunch of St. Francis's running around, only blinkered by our cultural programming.
Biologically speaking we are probably incapable of actually creating bonds with people that we haven't met in person. Charities work by making us think about how horrible the peoples lives are, which we then link to ourselves by imagining our own children/siblings/parents in the situations depicted.
@Moniker: Go suck a cock.
Group loyalty would seem to be a pretty powerful force, historically speaking.
If we cared about people in other countries more and tried to stop world hunger and poverty we would actually be doing ourselves a favor by cleaning up the breeding grounds for the mutations of diseases and bacteria. ("breeding grounds" isn't accurate I know)
Yes, mostly because being in the bigger, stronger group increases your chances of survival and your ability to prosper. It also creates a system in which it is easier to mate as you are excluding outsiders and giving yourself a better shot with those loyal to the group.
Evo-psych is mostly bullshit.
Maybe that's the reason, maybe it isn't.
You can appreciate my point though, that in a world where people probably don't cooperate enough, the removal of one of the ties that binds them together probably won't result in a situation in which everyone get's along. It will result in a situation in which people are even less cooperative and connected.
It's not evo-phsyc it's just stretched versions of Darwins theories. Evo-phsyc would be saying why we think the human mind makes these decisions based on these facts.
And yes I can appreciate your point, but do you think that banding together because of where you are from is necessary over banding together because of the ideals you believe in? Also, in the OP I put the Wiki quote saying how Patriotism used to be viewed and how it has changed today, is it really a good thing to have kept these beliefs just because they may have been historically useful?
It's probably more conducive, yes, because governments are geographically based entities.
I don't think you have much agreement that anything has changed a great deal from two centuries ago.
This is true, charity should be given indiscriminately and donating money to another country should never be seen as more important than helping out the area where you live.
But there is a difference between helping those around you to gain the best possible lifestyle and economy for where you live, and believing that the people in your community are better than other people outside of it, or that the people in your country should be cared about more than those outside of it.
That's nothing to do with patriotism. I was making out that you shouldn't "band together" meaning you shouldn't back and care about those around you more just because of geography. You think that we haven't changed much from the 1800's? So you think that we should be patriotic because we've been doing it that way for 200 years and not much has changed since then?
no, not much has changed in 200 years when it comes to human nature.
I'm not talking about how people should create societies and how we've evolved in groups, unless you believe this is relevant to how we are patriotic now?
So we still hang people from trees as a law, it's illegal to marry outside of your own race, and it's o.k to hold duels over honor? Human nature doesn't change but society and how we think about situations changes so don't give me that bullshit.
I would never willingly fight and die for my country unless my personal freedoms were at risk by the invasion of a oppressor.
however, your geographic location does necessitate that you care about the people who share it. try having a room mate that you dont like or living next to neighbors who secretly despise you because you happen to be a member of the Allied Atheist Alliance instead of the United Atheist Alliance (yes i made a south park reference because i felt like it). would you rather have your enemies be 5000 miles away or right next door?
the fact that the law (in some countries) prohibits people from hanging people from trees and having duels does not mean that given the freedom to do so, people would abstain (and i know some that wouldnt). how we think about situations has NOT changed, its what we think about situations that has. the belief that we have drastically changed in the past 50, 100, 1000 etc years is just stupid and generally is due to generationalism and technological blindness (look what we can do now that they couldnt do before, we must be so much smarter than they were). people thousands of years ago were able to think and reason just as well as we do now, they were just less educated.
It's not only that, and I think this was covered in the last page. The mix-up is there sure, and people sometimes go into one from another (seeing as jingoism is just extreme patriotism and aggression). Yet, the way we are patriots today is negative in how we, as human beings, interact.
What the hell are you talking about, this hasn't been implied or stated anywhere so far.
Also, this is just like saying "let's replace one way of inciting prejudice with another way of doing it more harmfully. Nice strawman, to use the meme.[/quote]
I have had room mates I hate, and I sure as hell don't care about them more than I care about Obama, who I actually care about quite a lot seeing as he's leading the most powerful country in the world.
I think that, no we generally haven't changed in our base instincts for the last few hundred thousand years, never mind the last thousand, but it doesn't mean that we should be a bunch of ignorant, exclusionary assholes just because we have the want to do so sometimes.
you said "Maybe we should band together with like minded individuals whose ideals are the same as our own" regardless of how you look at like minded, there are going to be people around you who are not like minded and are therefore you do not associate with.
what.....???? i do not follow how you jumped to that... but let me reiterate, would you rather live next to someone you hate or someone you like?
what is your point here dude? it seems like you are equating patriotism to racism and thats just wrong...
More or less, idealogy>geography.
Well in the USA it was decided that using patriotism as a bludgeon was a great way to demonize the opposition and scare up votes from the ignorant. The word's "meaning" changed roughly 6 years ago. Somewhere around the "Freedom Fries" mark.
I would like to live next door to someone I like if I had the choice, which you never do really.
Should I care about the person next door if I hate them, over someone who lives in another town and supports a different football team even though I have a lot in common with them and they're good people?
I am trying to say that Patriotism, as it is used and carried out (if you will) in this day and age, is about blindly agreeing with and following whatever the leaders of your country choose.
E.g:
"Fucking westerners"
"Fucking Northern Monkeys"
"Fucking Southern Fairies"
"Rule Britannia"
"Ame-e-erica :whistle: "
There are many more. I am not debating how society has grown or how we should live to create a democracy. I'm talking about the way that a lot of people are "Patriots". May they actually be nationalists like the BNP or Jingoists (which are just extreme Patriots).
I put in the OP how Patriotism used to be viewed and followed, and I believe that we have shifted away from that.
And at the tail end of the 1800's. Around the 19 teens. In the McCarthyite 40's and 50's. Also the 70's. The 80's. Part of the 90's...
Jingoism is a cyclically outlook that ebbs and flows among the populace constantly. It's always there, it just isn't always in the mainstream or given a microphone, but it's never gone away and it never will. However true patriotism is also always there, and it grows and wanes as well.
Word.
This stuff about how patriotism used to be viewed does not have even a tangential relationship to reality.
Sure you should, in so much as geography corresponds with the various social components that make up our public identities.
No, I explained that I think we should be patriotic because the alternative isn't caring more, it's caring less.
I honestly doubt that this was ever true, probably not of any country, but certainly not of America.
I mean, your founding myths were those of American exceptionalism, westward expansion and manifest destiny. That you had the right to teach all the other idiots about how awesome America was, through force if need be. Not exactly a genial, simple pride in your country.
The idea that it's only now that patriotism is associated with everyone else sucking requires a pretty damn rosy view of the past.
The only thing patriotism seems to do is create the space for hate to co-opt it. I don't see why it isn't better to simply act ethically (the dedication being to life, not to country).
I like my house, but haven't burned down my neighbor's for spite. I love my family, but don't dislike other people for it. I feel a shared bond with other Americans but don't dislike Canadians because of it.
It's very difficult to connect people, to make them care about each other, to make some sacrifice for the sake of others. Patriotism, dedication to your countrymen, inspires an amazing outpouring of personal sacrifice. Without it, I'm skeptical that some kind of dedication to abstract humanity or commitment to ethics would take it's place.