Patriotism. Nationalism. Good or Bad? Is it time for a new American Nationalism?

[Zix]

As some of you have noticed, I am Scottish. I LIKE being Scottish. I like Scotland. I didn't used to, actually, but I do now. I'd go so far as to say that I'm proud of being Scottish.

Is that allowed?

This may be a no-brainer to some, but I've seen some posts recently decrying nationalism itself, mostly from people who seem disappointed in the version that Americans have.

Would it be good to flip this on its head? A huge majority of Americans want universal health care.

Couldn't that make health care a nationalist position?

I say that because the social infrastructure of Scotland is one of the things about it that makes me proud.

If America invested more in social and intellectual rather than material or fiscal capital, would that make you proud, or prouder? More nationalistic? And if it did, would that be bad?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. I think the nationalism becomes a problem when it's counted as an achievement.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being interested in culture or country. It only becomes a problem when you declare yourself better than others because of your culture or country or you act as though you have accomplished something by being (in this instance) American.

I will sasy, when my husband wears his "British by birth. English by the grace of god." belt buckle, I get horribly embarrassed. It's not as if we chose where we were born.


Here is the offending belt buckle:

[Zix]

3. That belt buckle is perhaps just a teeny bit OTT...

:D

[Heidi]

2. In general, I take no particular pride in circumstances which have nothing to do

with my own character or accomplishments. So, as much as I love the people of the US, some of the culture and much of the landscape, for me to take pride in where I was born and am a citizen would be like being proud of my race, or the fact that I have red hair.

[Zix]

4. But would it be worth cultivating a pride that you feel you could say you have earned?

Is it wrong to be proud of a system to which you have contributed?

[KonaKane]

8. You have to be really careful with nationalism

I'm sure you are aware of the historical lessons of nationalism gone bad. It's like alcohol - great in small doses, but a disaster if you go on a binge.

Proud of something I have taken part in? Absolutely. But as an internationalist myself, I prefer to take pride in societies instead of contrived states. After all, it is people who make the mistakes and the changes.

BTW I live visiting your beautiful country, and have been several times. My mom side are McMichaels from the island of Lewis. Alba Gu Brath!

[Zix]

10. I suppose it's easier to be proud of a smaller nation.

The values we love are small and simple. There is no great Dream to which we feel we must adhere other than the dream of being allowed to be ourselves, really...

[KonaKane]

11. Very true. I wish my own nation were of the same national mind.

"Manifest Destiny" - two words that have cursed my country from their very utterance. Oh, to retreat to a more simple and humble mission.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Do we have the pure strength of will?

[Zix]

6. Could you clarify that response? nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions, and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer

[Zix]

9. Europeans arent necessarily right about EVERYTHING...

Although we are right about a lot of stuff...

[L0oniX]

33. Is that all you got?

Never was a patriot yet, but was a fool. – John Dryden

A patriot is a fool in ev’ry age. – Alexander Pope.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson

In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first. – Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen. – Ambrose Bierce

That pernicious sentiment, “Our country, right or wrong.” – James Russell Lowell

“My country right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother drunk or sober.” – G. K. Chesterton

Patriotism which has the quality of intoxication is a danger not only to its native land but to the world, and “My country never wrong” is an even more dangerous maxim than “My country, right or wrong.” – Bertrand Russell

Patrioism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. – George Bernard Shaw

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it. – Denis Diderot

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. – George Santayana

The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations. – H.G. Wells

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult. . . . Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship. – Erich Fromm

One of the great attractions of patriotism–it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat, Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous. – Aldous Huxley

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism” . . . Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots – Gordon Allport

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. – Elbert Hubband

Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy. – William Inge

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism corrupts history. – Goethe

Into the cultural and technological system of the modern world, the patriotic spirit fits like dust in the eyes and sand in the bearings. Its net contribution to the outcome is obscuration, distrust, and retardation at every point where it touches the fortunes of modern mankind. – Thorstein Veblen

The standardization of mass-production carries with it a tendency to standardize a mass-mind, producing a willing conformity, not merely to common ways of living, but to common ways of thinking and common valuations. The worst defect of patriotism is its tendency to foster and impose this common mind, and so to stifle the innumerable germs of liberty. – J.A. Hobson

2. Patriotism and War:

At the bottom of all patriotism is war: that is why I am no patriot. – Jules Renard

No other factor in history, not even religion, has produced so many wars as has the clash of national egotisms sanctified by the name of patriotism. – Preserved Smith

Naturally the common people don’t want war . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. – Hermann Goering.


3. Patriotism and Religion:

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. – Guy de Maupassant

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. – Luis Buñuel

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own. – Lionel Strachey

When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism! – David Starr Jordan

4. The American Syndrome:

If you have a weak candidate and a weak platform, wrap yourself up in the American flag and talk about the Constitution. – Matt Quay

How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be “American” before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries? It is really too easy a disguise for our shortcomings to dress them up as a form of patriotism. – Edith Wharton

The 100 percent American is 99 percent an idiot. – George Bernard Shaw

Treason is in the air around us everywhere. It goes by the name of patriotism. – Thomas Corwin

[Zix]

36. These individuals are confusing patriotism with bigotry.

What we have here is an impressive list of arguments from authority...

[kctim]

12. Of course it is allowed

Those who decry it are disappointed only because their version differs so greatly.

You cannot make health care a nationalist position by way of your new American Nationalism idea because the fact is that a huge majority of Americans do NOT want universal health care.

IMO, the love most of us Americans have for our country goes way beyond what any government investment could ever offer.

[Zix]

19. your pardon, but I was under the strong impression that there was a majority of support

for universal health care? Am I mixing it up with something other version of socialised health care like public option? I was certain I'd seen poll results with something in the region of 80% in favour of universal...

[kctim]

23. The main poll that was being used

showed that something like 73%(?) of those polled favored a public option form of reform. IMO, mostly because of the help it would offer those most in need.
The part of that poll that is intentionally ignored though, is the part that shows that less than half of those for it, are actually willing to pay for it.

Not saying a poll showing the number you quote does not exist, just that I have not seen it.

[Zix]

25. Oh, ok.

I must have got confused. Your version sounds more like what I was thinking of...

[leftstreet]

13. More class identification, less patriotism and nationalism

That's the only way out of this

[asdjrocky]

14. America has given the world three things I'm very proud of-

and a lot of things I'm not so proud of as an American.

We gave the world representative democracy, (although these days we're not doing much with it), baseball, and the blues, jazz, rock, soul, you know, American music.

I may be wrong, and I do know that much of our Democracy, baseball, and music was borrowed from other cultures, but we've made those things better, and other countries have followed.

This is all, these days, that makes me proud of my country, or proud, if that is the right word, to be from America.

I like your last passage, but since I started reading Howard Zinn as a youth, I've feared and distrusted nationalism.

[glen123098]

15. I never understood patriotism.

Am I supposed to be proud because I was born in USA? Why? I hear its the greatest country on Earth. But I've never been to any other countries so how would I know? All I know is on certain lists such as human rights, healthcare, or education, USA isn't number 1. Also USA has done some terrible things. (Slaughtering the natives, slavery, starting illegal wars etc...) Basically USA is the country I was born in, and probably the country I'll die in because I can't afford to leave. Do I feel proud to live here? No, not any more proud than if I lived in say Spain or Germany. But I don't feel like burning the American flag either.

[Echo In Light]

16. "If America invested more in social and intellectual rather than..."

America's real owners don't want a populace capable of critical thought.

5 min video: George Carlin - Who Really Controls America

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14837.htm

As for patriotism/nationalism, I disagree w/the legitimacy of such concepts.

[Zix]

17. Then is MY nationalism at fault?

Why, if so?

[leftstreet]

18. Your pride in being Scottish should have nothing to do with politics

I was born in Chile, but it has shitall to do with the price of groceries

:hi:

[Zix]

20. Bu it does, and inescapably so...!

My government can't declare war and has limited powers over national security, limited by Westminster. the Scottish have wanted independence for centuries. This is a political position...

[leftstreet]

22. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying

Hard to say then.

But as far as Americans...I think more and more are seeing themselves as an oppressed citizenry!

[Zix]

28. Yar. There is, in fact, another America, isn't there?

And it's THOSE GUYS that I like...

[Echo In Light]

21. "At fault" isn't something I have any interest in, if you follow...

Look at it this way. I know many, many people, and chances are good that at least a few, not many, but a few (I tend to run w/other lefties, misfits, addicts and weirdos) are perhaps the sort to go all gooey over Their Country i.e. "their" heritage, ethnicity, class, etc ...and on the day-to-day level of how we all interact w/those whose views/beliefs differ from our own, I say, fine, who cares?...and will basically let it go, unless it's being addressed somehow.

Which is to say, within the context of this specific type of discussion re sociopolitical topics, I speak my mind freely. But it doesn't mean I automatically equate anyone whose beliefs differ from my own as an enemy who I'm trying to establish "fault" with.

[Zix]

26. You're refusing to fall into my trap, damn you!

You're supposed to say that my nationalism's okay and American nationalism's not okay and then I get to say "Ah HAAAAAA, you can't do that!"

Pout.

:P
:D

[librechik]

24. I can't love my country when it insists that torture is its policy.

If that makes RWers say I'm unpatriotic, so be it. They are wrong.

I hate torture, and if I knew how to do it I would change that policy and be willing to give my life to do so--I love my country that much.

Trying to figure out a more effective strategy, however. Suicide is not very effective.

If my country was smart enough to learn how to take care of its needy citizens properly, that would make me very proud. Instead it seems to want to blame the poor for problems they had nothing to do with, and act like being poor is a character flaw, not a result of complex forces out of the control of poor folks completely (like who gets hired and where) Government should be there to help out when capitalism fails.

[Zix]

27. Was your country always so?

I suspect not.

It seems a shame to ditch the entire idea just because of the mistakes of one decade.

Torture is wrong, but America is certainly not the only country that tortures, and Europe has done things in the past that are WAY, WAY, WAY worse than anything America has done. This may be a function of Europe's age, but were one to adopt that caveat a similar forbearance should be extended to America, perhaps, for its future?

I think America's a good idea, you see...

[librechik]

30. The American experiment is by its design against torture--that's why the recent reversal on this

is so infuriating. I can't sign on to that part, and so have to fight it without knowing when it will end (if ever--I thought Obama would ACTUALLY end torture (didn't) and dithering about responsibility for it (didn't) and not sign on to the detention without trial farce (did sign on, and trying to codify it) Obama is not reversing what he should have.
\
THAT IS NOT THE UNITED STATES IDEA--I'm not onboard with that, and will use my patriotism to fight against it, even if I have to fight Obama, which apparently I do and am. European policies are
worth adopting, but there is a stigma against anything "socialistic" and of course all Europe is, so I imagine they won't be able to help us in our delusional state, sadly. I am really afraid of where we seem to be headed. I have grandchildren who will have to live in the country they are making.

[Donnachaidh]

29. we have a schitzophrenic form of nationalism already

It involves singing the star spangled banner with one hand over your heart, and your other hand free to smack the shit out of anyone trying to touch *your stuff*. If you're REALLY patriotic that free hand has a gun, and you can glare menacingly while singing, and cocking the hammer back on the gun if anyone gets NEAR *your stuff*.

The selfish, shallow, self-involved psychos started this shit back in the reagan era and it's snowballed ever since.

America thinks intellectualism is evil. And their idea of *social* anything is Facebook and/or church. Nothing else matters.

[readmoreoften]

31. Oh good god. The last thing we need is to be MORE NATIONALISTIC. For what?

To help the rich divide and conquer us. Please. What we need is international solidarity, not pride over "hey I happened to be born here." Everyone has their culture. It's not very interesting to me.

[Zix]

34. It's difficult enough getting a few million people to agree that they belong to the same thing.

And you want to aim for 6 billion?

Perhaps I should point out that I don't think nationalism's actually *avoidable* I think the only way to deal with it is to use it for something positive...

[Warren Stupidity]

32. nationalism is idiocy

it is a small planet overcrowded with humans of many "nations" - the critical problems human civilization confront are global in scope and 'nationalist' solutions involve condemning literally billions of people to an early death.

[Zix]

35. I'm not at all convinced that attempting to bind 6 BILLION people to a common vision

is going to be any less fraught with mishap.

[haele]

37. Patriotism is one thing, Nationalism is another.

One can be patriotic and be working to fix the problems to make it a better place to live, or to right a wrong. One can be patriotic and make sacrifices to serve their country - and not just by joining the military, but by, say using your medical license or law license to practice in desperately needy areas where you won't make enough money to more quickly pay off your student loans as you would practicing in a more wealthy area.
However, Nationalism suggests a belief in exceptionalism in a country - the type that encourages the more ignorant, fearful, or selfish to shout "Love it or Leave it" at those who are different, either in looks or in culture.

Haele

[Cleobulus]

38. What's so special about being Scottish, I'm of Scottish/Irish extraction...

myself, and feel nothing in particular about it. Neither do I feel anything in particular about being an American citizen. Indeed, I find such views to be dangerous and counterproductive. You say you are proud of being Scottish, fine, and the KKK and Aryan nations say they are proud to be white, hell, they are actually more inclusive(including all white folks, as they do, rather than just one ethnicity/nationality)! Think about that for a moment.

Supporting a policy within the country I happen to be born in is just as easily a humanist rather than nationalistic position. Universal health care is a classic example of that, since only the federal government can implement that in the United States, and we can implement it in a way to not diminish the lives of people beyond our borders, I can happily support it. Of course, in my case, a single payer system is best, but we are talking about general principles here.

[Zix]

39. I think there's a difference between being of Scottish extraction and being Scottish.

I've been to many places in the world and none, to me, are as beautiful as Scotland.

The KKK have no pride, only fear.

Perhaps you think by "pride" I mean some kind of sense of superiority?

[Cleobulus]

40. Of course there's a difference, hence why I didn't say I was simply Scottish...

I have ancestors from there, and Ireland, according to family history, around 70% of my ancestors came from Scotland and Ireland, its hard to sort them out beyond that.

You second statement is a statement of personal opinion or preference.

You could be right about the KKK, then again, maybe not either.

Pride leads to a sense of entitlement, and eventually can lead to a sense of superiority, exclusion, etc.