Nationalism/Patriotism

[ComradeDaryl]

What does everybody here think of Nationalism/Patriotism here? I find it ridiculous that a lot of humans still are proud of their country of birth/ethnicity/ancestry, since you didn't get to choose them when you were born. We're all humans who are descended from a small group in Africa like 200,000 years ago, and skin colour/eye colour/etc results from different climates. I heard from somewhere that a male and female of the same "ethnicity" have more differences in their DNA than 2 people of the same gender from a different ethnicity(I don't know where to back this up though).

I find that my US-based friend(his parents and family isn't even from the States, and most of his family doesn't even live in the States) is making a fool out of himself of thinking about overthrowing Australia's government, when he could help this world unite instead of continuing to divide it.

George Carlin Wrote:"I could never understand ethnic or national pride. Because to me, pride should be reserved for something you achieve or attain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill, it’s a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say “I’m proud to be 5’11”. I’m proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer.” So why the fuck would you be proud to be Irish, or proud to be Italian, or American or anything?"

[Dead]

"I'm so proud that I crawled out of my mother's vagina while she was in this particular mass of land"

[ComradeDaryl]

(10-05-2015 07:09 AM)Dead Wrote:  "I'm so proud that I crawled out of my mother's vagina while she was in this particular mass of land"

Or "I'm so proud that I slithered out of my mother's vagina with this particular skin/eye/hair colour!"

[Dead]

Yep, that too.

[brainiac3397]

You are aware nationalism is actually something of a new concept(relative to the progression of human philosophical and ideological development). It really popped up around 19th century and expanded greatly by 20th century(peaking during the period of WW2 with the rise of the ultra-nationalist facists).

You might be surprised to hear that liberalism and enlightenment set the foundation of nationalism,specifically "romantic nationalism" which is basically loving your country and it's cultural traditions. Exemplified in such images:




Realistically it's not about pride of being born in a country. It's pride in SUPPORTING said country. Initially the idea was to place the concept of the nation-state and thus the people of said nation above a single man(often a monarch) and in many cases, on par with God himself(thus kicking the clergy off their pedestal).

Take America for example. There are certainly nationalists who exist who are naturalized Americans(aka immigrants-turned-citizen). Technically speaking, there really isn't anything wrong with that either because technically a citizen is a citizen. I'm sure there'll be some "patriotic" groups who'd refuse them but that's another case.

I'm guessing by his statement, George Carlin doesn't support gay pride? Unless he'd like to imply being homosexual is something one attains or achieves? I'd personally take his statement with a grain of salt because it literally ignores the historic importance of nationalist idealism and the impact it's had(like helping create and maintain a country that lets him say such things oui?)

Then again when you give the uneducated masses an idea that was derived by intellectuals, you're forced to strip most of it's meaning out down to the barebone, and the barebone isn't enough to keep the idea together and free from corruption.

[ComradeDaryl]

(10-05-2015 01:51 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  You are aware nationalism is actually something of a new concept(relative to the progression of human philosophical and ideological development). It really popped up around 19th century and expanded greatly by 20th century(peaking during the period of WW2 with the rise of the ultra-nationalist facists).

You might be surprised to hear that liberalism and enlightenment set the foundation of nationalism,specifically "romantic nationalism" which is basically loving your country and it's cultural traditions. Exemplified in such images:




Realistically it's not about pride of being born in a country. It's pride in SUPPORTING said country. Initially the idea was to place the concept of the nation-state and thus the people of said nation above a single man(often a monarch) and in many cases, on par with God himself(thus kicking the clergy off their pedestal).

Take America for example. There are certainly nationalists who exist who are naturalized Americans(aka immigrants-turned-citizen). Technically speaking, there really isn't anything wrong with that either because technically a citizen is a citizen. I'm sure there'll be some "patriotic" groups who'd refuse them but that's another case.

I'm guessing by his statement, George Carlin doesn't support gay pride? Unless he'd like to imply being homosexual is something one attains or achieves? I'd personally take his statement with a grain of salt because it literally ignores the historic importance of nationalist idealism and the impact it's had(like helping create and maintain a country that lets him say such things oui?)

Then again when you give the uneducated masses an idea that was derived by intellectuals, you're forced to strip most of it's meaning out down to the barebone, and the barebone isn't enough to keep the idea together and free from corruption.

You should love humanity as a whole, since you didn't choose your ancestry/ethnicity/country of birth at all. We need to unite as a species, you know that. "Pride in Supporting SAID country" still means "Pride in supporting your country of birth/ancestry/ethnicity".

[brainiac3397]

Humanity will never love humanity as a whole. Its too broad a category and too vague an idea. Humans are factional creatures. We want to distinguish and belong to unique identities beyond the mere fact we're human.

Uniting as a species at this pojnt is just utopic nonsense. There is no need or motivation for it. Plus uniting as a species wont change anything. We will still discriminate along lines of wealth, occupation, education, religion, sports teams and so on. It wouldnt be surprising if one of these ended up going far enough to divide humanity once more.

Humanity shouldnt unite. Cooperation works just fine...

[ComradeDaryl]

(10-05-2015 10:21 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Humanity will never love humanity as a whole. Its too broad a category and too vague an idea. Humans are factional creatures. We want to distinguish and belong to unique identities beyond the mere fact we're human.

Uniting as a species at this pojnt is just utopic nonsense. There is no need or motivation for it. Plus uniting as a species wont change anything. We will still discriminate along lines of wealth, occupation, education, religion, sports teams and so on. It wouldnt be surprising if one of these ended up going far enough to divide humanity once more.

Humanity shouldnt unite. Cooperation works just fine...

That's BS, sir. In the first tens of thousands of years that we existed, we were barely divided. Are you trying to argue for innate human nature? If we were factional in those tens of thousands of years, we would already be extinct. I believe that humans are social species, and without that, we wouldn't be here.

Also, saying my suggestion is "utopic" nonsense is trying to shut my speech up.

[brainiac3397]

Barely divided? The first division was tribal, before we even settled to create civilization. The only reason to "like" one another was a mutual interext in survival. Otherwise humans begin to divide based on family/clan loyalty, occupational loyalty, property loyalty, religious loyalty and so on. Just because we werent murdering one another doesnt imply we were united. It just means we had no motivation to kill one another.

Your approach is heavily inaccurate because your equating division with death. No where is it apparent that division means death. A society doesnt have to be genocidal to be divided. It may be more violent if the division is great, but only infrequently can the division be so great to lead to outright massacre.

India has been a caste system for centuries. Religiously and socially enforced division among them. I dont see the priest class murdering everyone beneath them.

Its a fallacy to equate nationalism with death (and nothing more than propaganda likely based off the action of various ultra-nationalist groups in recent history). Pride is an excuse to kill for another reason (often economic in nature). Man only kills for "profit".

[ComradeDaryl]

I'm Samoan(I live in Apia, the capital and largest city of Samoa), but I don't see as much patriotism/nationalism as the States though, and I've lived in both countries(I was born in Samoa, by the way). I don't want to be proud of my ethnicity/nationality/ancestry, since I didn't get to choose it at all.

[brainiac3397]

Nationalism generally requires development through strongly held historic traditions and culture as a nationhood, whether as a historic nation or modern one.

Island nations don't seem to have the same degree, probably because the natives had no concept of nationalism being that they were predominantly tribal, or have no "national tradition" to uphold because their history has been predominantly uneventful and limited to a local scale.

Plus nationalism has often been formed through a revolution against the existing government, and this government was generally a monarchical one. If the society had a monarchy and did not revolt against it, they really had no need to establish a new "populist" idea known as "nationhood" to differentiate from the aristocracy and monarch who considered themselves to be what defined the nation(thus citizens were subjects, not citizens).

Meaning in the end, native societies and small nations that maintained a long period of tribalism will not have a need for nationalism because they identify by something else(family, tribe, religion, island etc.) under a single "nation".

And technically one can choose. All it requires is citizenship. Nationalism doesn't usually correlate with nativism, even if the nativists are nationalists. Seeing as nationalism is an identity, and depending on the rules for becoming a citizen, one's ability to adopt the new national identity is simply reliant on the citizenship laws. Im sure one could find a group that isn't some radically nativist nationalist group that wouldn't accept a new citizen.

[ComradeDaryl]

Yes people can technically choose their citizenship, but it's almost never easy.

I don't see myself as a Samoan, ethnically or nationally, I see myself as a human instead. Also, for George Carlin, as far as he speaks out against Nationalism in that piece, he usually never talks about other countries in the vast majority of his other acts. How ironic and hypocritical George Carlin was.

[brainiac3397]

Well there are benefits a citizen gets in said country. Cant hand em like like free candy or pens.

[ComradeDaryl]

The United States and the United Kingdom basically use nationalism like a religion, basically a civil religion.

[brainiac3397]

No. Every country in the world uses nationalism like a religion...because state-hood is a concept inherent in every existing nation(to a varying degree).

Considering how the US doesn't have an annual parade where we're rolling tanks down a street, we arent exactly that far up in the nationalist euphoria.

[ComradeDaryl]

Nativism is freaking stupid, and it's a specific form of nationalism, more like ethnic/ancestral nationalism. I believe that pride based on skin/eye/hair color and/or ancestry is really ridiculous, and if people were to stop being so proud of it, I bet most racism/national chauvinism would be eliminated.

[Username]

I'll give you props for using chauvinism correctly.

[Alistoriv]

left wing nationalism ain't bad

[ComradeDaryl]

(12-03-2015 08:14 AM)Alistoriv Wrote:  left wing nationalism ain't bad

It's just as bad, since it divides the workers and humanity a lot more. Nationalism based on skin/eye/hair color/ancestry, like I said, is really ridiculous, since no one gets to choose their ancestry and skin/eye/hair color.

[brainiac3397]

Well you can dye your hair, and they have colored lens.

[Alistoriv]

(12-05-2015 02:34 AM)ComradeDaryl Wrote:  

(12-03-2015 08:14 AM)Alistoriv Wrote:  left wing nationalism ain't bad

It's just as bad, since it divides the workers and humanity a lot more. Nationalism based on skin/eye/hair color/ancestry, like I said, is really ridiculous, since no one gets to choose their ancestry and skin/eye/hair color.

>national self determination
>bad
ok

[ComradeDaryl]

(12-05-2015 12:25 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Well you can dye your hair, and they have colored lens.

But is that easy to find or buy, let alone to apply for most human beings?

(12-06-2015 08:12 AM)Alistoriv Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 02:34 AM)ComradeDaryl Wrote:  

(12-03-2015 08:14 AM)Alistoriv Wrote:  left wing nationalism ain't bad

It's just as bad, since it divides the workers and humanity a lot more. Nationalism based on skin/eye/hair color/ancestry, like I said, is really ridiculous, since no one gets to choose their ancestry and skin/eye/hair color.

>national self determination
>bad
ok

Self determination is good, and I'm not a fan of imperialism either, but nationalism divides the workers/people, especially if it's nationalism based around ancestry and/or eye/hair/skin colour.

[brainiac3397]

Ethnic nationalism isn't in vogue. Most forms of nationalism appeal to the traditions of the nation, meaning technically anybody who identifies as being of that nationality and tradition(while also able to obtain a citizenship since some nations don't have it easy) is part of said national identity.

Sure, nationalist sentiments tend to draw in racists and xenophobes but they represent a fringe not the mainstream. So how exactly is there any division? Hell many people dont even put too much weight on nationalism in day-to-day life.(in US at least)

[Sainika]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being who you are. It's normal for you to be that way. Let's say you're brown eyed and wanted to be blue eyed. you can't change yourself at all, when it comes to the genetics and physical features correlation. Just be proud of it, because self hate just leads to suicide and depression.

Why be ashamed of something you can't control?

[no]

Why be proud of something that isn't a choice or an accomplishment?

[Dead]

.

[ComradeDaryl]

(01-31-2016 06:42 PM)Marsayate Wrote:  There is absolutely nothing wrong with being who you are. It's normal for you to be that way. Let's say you're brown eyed and wanted to be blue eyed. you can't change yourself at all, when it comes to the genetics and physical features correlation. Just be proud of it, because self hate just leads to suicide and depression.

Why be ashamed of something you can't control?

(02-01-2016 01:36 AM)no Wrote:  Why be proud of something that isn't a choice or an accomplishment?

Better yet, why care about something you can't change? We should all see each other as human beings, instead of whatever nationality/ethnicity/skin colour at all. I bet most racism/national chauvinism would stop if they started viewing themselves as human beings and not as different ethnic groups/etc.

Just because we're not proud of what we can't change doesn't mean we are self-hating ourselves. We just don't give a shit about it, and view ourselves more as humans more than anything. It's better to be apathetic towards something we can't change, and the inescapable truth, is that we all belong to the same species.