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An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
I take issue with the first panel.
To me, patriotism is "I'm going to work on my house because I love the people who live in it and I want them all to have the best house."
If you start from the assumption that your country is the "best" that's nationalism and straying too close to the roots of xenophobia.
Yeah, it's maybe the greatest difference between Patriotism and Nationalism: the former is all about "I'll work to make my house the best house" whilst the latter is about "Yield to me, as I am from the best house".
Patriots want their country to be the best country, Nationalist want to extract gains from living in what they think is the best country.
You'll notice that the only things Nationalists ever do for their country are things like "stopping others from coming here" or "celebrating the greatness of their country", which aren't at all about making the country better.
It could be the best for you.
You seem to be implying all people and countries are on a scale moving closer to some single ideal.
But it's perfectly valid to think your house is the best and want it to be different to someone else's house, who also thinks their house is the best.
You seem to be implying all people and countries are on a scale moving closer to some single ideal.
I mean that's definitely how some people interpret it but at least for me, patriotism encompasses the idea that my country should be best for me and the people in it but that other people in other countries get to think the same thing about their country and work towards their own version of "best."
But I'm not gonna argue that everyone does patriotism this way because that's clearly not the case 🙃 plenty of "patriots" out there willing to wreck their own country in a war over bringing their own ideals to a different place.
Nah.
Patriots would be there waving a giant flag saying we’re the best house ever, despite not actually being involved in building the house or having anything to do with the state of it outside of living in it.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
We need to build a shared culture so that we can work together.
My house will become the best house should be a message we all can get around. Otherwise, why should I work with you to build society?
If you don't like shared work or shared culture to begin with, it's a bit problematic in that your own political ideologies are destined to die. At the very minimum, your ideology must be self sustaining.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
That's not true, Bernie Sanders campaign had a wonderfully wholesome and inclusive version of patriotism which they used to great effect:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nwRiuh1Cug
...and he also talks about his nationalism when deriding the Koch brothers:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
So like most things it depends on when AND HOW they're used.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
Not true. Patriotism is wanting and seeking the best for your country. Because our society relies on those physical divides, patriotism would actually improve society. Nationalism is deciding that whatever your country is doing already is the best simply by virtue of self-identification. There is no desire for improvement outside of an individual perception so it, functionally, can never offer any improvement for society.
One is potentially beneficial. The other is cancerous.
Strange, nationalists in Europe have a lot of ideas about how to change their various countries.
Only in that they want to move it to a more extreme version of what they already perceive it to be. They are not looking to change it based on any meaningful measure. Nationalists are almost always conservatives.
Ok so let's entertain the opposite of patriotism and talk about self distane what is going to drive you to fix the crumbling rotting foundation or leaky roof because who cares if this crummy house rots and collapses on me if you don't care about your county then you won't have the drive to maintain it sure some might but those people who don't need motivation to do things are rare and far between if the world is hopeless then what hope is there of fixing it
Is pride the only reason you take care of your health?
Because the motivation to not live in a shit place should be that you wouldn’t want to be living in a shit place, not because you think it’s great.
People with no or low self-worth are way more likely to neglect their health than those with high self-worth. Pride is a huge motivator for taking care of your health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194072/
The levels of obesity and diabetes among the Pima Indians of Arizona have long been recognised to be high. A small study tested the efficacy of lifestyle interventions. Two groups were identified. The Pima action group had a familiar mix of interventions on nutrition and physical activity. The Pima pride group looked remarkably like a control group for a health education trial—they received printed leaflets about activity and nutrition—but in addition they had regular discussions with local leaders on Pima culture and history. At the end of 12 months, much was going in the wrong direction for the action group, but the pride group had either less deterioration of risk factors or improvements. Compared with the action group the pride group looked favourable on weight, waist circumference, and blood glucose and insulin levels two hours after a glucose load.3 A tentative conclusion was that increasing pride in their identity had a more favourable impact on health behaviours and risk than focusing on how to change diet and exercise.
People often don't take care of things they aren't proud of. It doesn't matter if it's clearly in their best interest to.
Yup. The main difference between a patriot and a nationalist - or fascist - is a few years and an opportunity.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
State-level patriotism also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
And there is no valid reason to have some special relation to your country. It is natural to feel ties with the place you were born or the place you spent a lot of time in, this is human psychology, but your country is nothing but a piece of land that was marked by somebody as belonging to some virtual entity.
We should ditch state-level patriotism as a concept and treat local-level patriotism as a natural bias. We should strive to help people of all places and origins, and come together as one.
Instead of local-level should it not be headed towards planet-level?
Our obsession with owning land and borders will be the death of us all.
Like, without hyperbole, if we all die, it will be because of our attachment to the concept of "owning land" and having to draw imaginary lines across ground and rock and water to signify who owns what.
But when you step back and really think about it, it makes zero sense if you actually care about an equitable world where people aren't hurting each other. It makes zero sense from a cosmic perspective, as this is a rock flying around a star, it has been here longer than us and will outlast us to a degree that our presence here, no matter what we do, will be a brief blip in cosmic time. We have no legacy, no real connection to the dirt below us other than how it gave us life. And yet claim ownership over it?
It makes no sense from a material perspective either, all borders do is reduce the flow of goods and services, creates artificial limits on who can go where creating "pressure zones" that eventually explode over and become migration disasters, and of course the people who pretend to rule these patches of dirt and rock and water and will send millions of people to death to preserve this roleplay. And we all cheer and defend this concept with all our heart.
Make it make sense.
At the very least, yes.
Don't worry, if we ever become an interplanetary species, we'll do the exact same fucking thing
Which will be the time to ditch planetary-level patriotism as well.
For now, it's good enough.
also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
I don't think we need to do any division between people.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
patriotism is a very personal thing, by the very definition of it. You simply cannot apply it outside of yourself. If you are outwardly patriotic. You have already fucked up.
I would argue there is a valid reason to have some form of special relation to your country, your country is simply, not any other existing country. If you live in estonia, you have a fully digital government. If you live in america you have one of the foundational democratic governments of modern society, as well as a particular cultural history (though turbulent, rather remarkable) as well as a particularly unusual geography and land usage. If you live in europe, you live in a moderately to high density populated area, that is highly socialized, and cooperative. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The fundamental problem here is thinking that europe is worse than america, simply because it's different. What you're applying here is a soviet level utilitarian "collective" identity.
Though i agree with the state level patriotism, that's fucking weird, stop doing that.
There’s no “special” reason to view the adults you grew up with as better or worse caretakers. Statistically, it’s likely they’re equivalent to many others.
Still, this over application of logic refuses to let us be enthusiastic about anything unless there’s a scientifically documented reason towards it. It’s nice to have reasons to adore something, even if that thing is a country - but the comic is making the point that you should still want to find flaws in and improve that thing.
You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient.”
Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.
Conservative's patriotism is mostly virtue signaling in my experience.
I am the queen of France (drums start) (wavy arm dance begin)
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. - Patrick O'Brien
What a dumbass take.
The difference is much simpler. Patriotism for internal conflicts, nationalism for external conflicts. Both for manufactured Boogeymen fueled by malicious propaganda.
imo, actual patriotism would be more like "I want to make my house as good as I can."
You don't have to think your country is the best to be patriotic with respect to that country.
Chauvinism ≠ nationalism
Ireland and quebec are nationalist, they want to become independent from englad. Its about sovereignty.
Chauvinism is fanatical adoration of a person, a group or a belief like the maga side of the republican.