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.
wanting your country to be better if the only valid patriotism.
thinking you’re better because some arbitrary borders might as well be a mental disease.
I believe true patriotism isn’t just about loving your country, it’s about holding it accountable to its ideals. I love America deeply, and I honor those who sacrificed to uphold its founding principles. But I also see how words like ‘freedom’ and ‘patriotism’ have been misused, often twisted into tools for division or control. To me, being a patriot means seeking truth, learning from history, and speaking out when those values are betrayed. It’s about striving to make the country better, not pretending it’s perfect.
It all depend on how you define patriotism. Honestly, I think Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem is the most patriotic act ever. He knew people would hate him for it, but he did it anyways because he took a hard look at his own country and decided we needed to do better.
It’s what the Olympics are for
The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But 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
It may a 200 year old quote, but the only thing that has changed is that we have since found even worse things to be proud of.
I am proud of my nation and its progressive, socialist nature, yet I am fully, and painfully so, aware of it’s shortcomings and problems.
But despite the problems, it’s extremely hard for me not to feel pride for the way we handle things within and without, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. We’ve been consistently at the top of the most socially progressive charts of the world, having also been denoted the worlds happiest country for over 5 years in row, and so on.
I do have my own prides, things I’m not ashamed to claim being very good at, and I do have a lot of very loud criticism against my nation too. But I remain overall proud just because we dare to be, against most odds, progressive and socialist.
I would defend my country, even picking up arms, because the chances are, the invader will simply be worse. Lead to worse overall situation here. Anyone surpassing us on either social or progressive counts, would be almost certainly not invading anyone, let alone us.
Maybe I am the fool the quote talks about, the good-at-nothing simpleton falling back to national pride for lack of any of my own. But I do not feel like one and I certainly have a lot more, explicitly outside the concept of a nation and this specific nation too, prides and accomplishments to be proud of.
I don’t think national pride is all that bad. I think it can be reasonable if the nation is best at its class on things most important and dear to you. Of course most national pride around the world is rooted on shitty stuff, and most nationally pride people usually being neo-nazi assholes, yet I still remain steadfast in my opinion that it need not be so.
It can be fine. I am sure of that.
The difference between you and the described “fool” is, that you are not inherently proud of your nation, but more like what you as a nation have accomplished (at least that’s what I interpreted from your words). The patriotic fool on the other hand is proud of much more stupid things he had nothing to do with. He takes pride in his language, the culture, his own town simply because he was born into it. The fool wants to stop all influences from outside, that may change the thing he takes pride in. He sees the world as a constant static structure that evolved and that should not be changed, ignoring that constant change just made things like culture the way they are.
You on the other hand said, that you take pride for your nation having a high standard of living, a good social system and such stuff. All of these have been earned through constant fight and you can be proud of winning this fight. You are also able to see flaws in the current system and want stuff to change.
This is a good commentary on it:
It’s good to want to improve the world around you, which can be given a label of patriotism. Going too far down that road leads to lots of unhappiness, though.
arbitrary bullshit, we’re just picking which words to like and dislike now. neither of those words mean what that comic says
You can be proud of the good things your country has done or is doing. So long as you don’t forget the laundry list of dodgy shit it has also done.
I liken it to being proud of yourself as a person. You can take pride in yourself and your achievements but you should never forget all the times you fucked up.
In the long run it’s dumb and cringe.
Source: I’m American and old.
Only the gullible are proud of their country. The real patriots are critical of the mistakes of the country.
One can be proud despite its shortcomings. Nothing is perfect in this world. But there are things worth being proud of, despite understanding its flaws and being consistently critical of it as a whole.
I agree with you on this but with some nuance. This thinking is correct and should be used on individual level. However, time has shown us that most humans are stupid and will resort to herd mentality. So, the pride quickly turns into nationalism.
What does it even mean in this context? Pride? You didn’t do it, you were just born there and it was already done. I feel people mistake “pleased” or “happy” with “proud”.
Believe it or not, I’ve been a part of it since I was born. I didn’t just come to be in a vacuum. I’ve influenced the society as much as anyone, we work together to make it better, we are a team, we protest. We sign petitions. We vote. We talk and talk and talk and have kids that will, too, become a part of what we’ve worked hard for and against and with.
Being proud of the team, of yourself, or the fact that you with your team are actively succeeding in not becoming a fascist shithole like the US or Russia for example. It’s not nothing. It’s worth being proud of. And takes effort, work, input every single day of every single month of every single year.
Yeah. I’m proud of myself and everyone around me. But I’m also proud of what we’ve worked together to build. This country did not stay this way by itself. It’d be ruined by capitalism and fascism the second we, the people of this country, stopped fighting against it and making this nation something to feel proud belonging to.
Hey, fair enough, that seems pretty reasonable. If it’s an extension of the pride you feel in being a decent human being who makes his environment better for everyone and it doesn’t veer into jingoistic exceptionalism, I understand and condone it. 👍
Does it count as patriotism if you think your country kind of sucks and want to improve it? I suppose many rightwingers are convinced that they are doing exactly that, if only it were actually true …
That’s exactly why I’m asking. What patriotism is or should be, I can’t answer, but I can say that what the self-proclaimed patriots in America are doing atm seems to me like the opposite of what this this strange concept should be about, because they are helping to cement an oligarchy - and that can’t be in the interests of US citizens.
Edit: Just to be clear: If you are a US citizen and disagree with the administration’s policies, I would consider you a patriot – but I am probably the worst person to ask about this.
in America at least the right wing can’t create so they co-opt the meanings of others
‘Patriot’ used to have a positive connotation, say before the 1950s
Conservatives changed that by committing mountains of morally corrupt actions under the name of ‘Patriotism’, and used it as a weapon to silence and jail their political opposition during McCarthyism
Nowadays people who are actually concerned about the political direction of our country generally do not appreciate the label ‘patriot’ for what the conservatives have used it for
No, that’s just having a strong sense of community
The difference is you aren’t blinded to the flaws that need to be fixed
A ‘patriot’ will insist that American is the perfectbest and awesome and has zero flaws and if you insist there are flaws then you must be a damn communist and it is their moral duty to oppose everything you suggest for change
And it’s fucking our country so bad that we won’t be a world power in 20 years
And it’s fucking our country so bad that we won’t be a world power in 20 years
Unfortunately, I very much doubt that. Look at Russia, it’s even worse than the USA AND has a far worse economy, yet it’s still a major power.
Holy shit, do we have a copypasta comm on Lemmy? That reply you got is brilliant, especially the beginning:
I would sincerely love to talk about the dynamics of America’s collapse as it is a special interest of mine, but this is lemmy and no rational discussion survives for more than 10 minutes so please understand when I make this statement, I’m not having a discussion. I am making a point, and ignoring all replies to it.
Love it.
I would sincerely love to talk about the dynamics of America’s collapse as it is a special interest of mine, but this is lemmy and no rational discussion survives for more than 10 minutes so please understand when I make this statement, I’m not having a discussion. I am making a point, and ignoring all replies to it.
The difference between America and the U.S.S.R.'s collapse is that the majority of manufacturing, data infrastructure, wealth, trade ports, and cultural cultural centers are in overwhelmingly blue areas which have access to their own military and militias. The fascists won’t be getting the whole country, they won’t even be getting the good parts of the country either. When it comes to outside aid as well, blue areas have the advantage as the two biggest salt water ports in the nation are in strongly blue zones, and I guarantee the fascists won’t be getting aid from most of Europe. We saved a lot of countries and now they know it’ll be time to pay that back.
It will be bloody and senseless and will last around ten years. And I hope to fuck this time they don’t fumble fucking Reconciliation. All traitors must hang or we will just get another crop next year.
And this could ALL have been prevented if you fuckers had just handled Gamergate for the joke like it was instead of catapulting it to international consciousness. If you want to know where all the MAGA rats came from, and where they learned to manipulate media? Bannon and his assholes cut their teeth on Gamergate and now we have fascism
The fucking hilarious part is that all of you coming after who will argue this obvious point because you are bored and like to see yourselves type.
lol. iamverysmart.
Seriously dude, look up epistemic humility. Will things be bad in the future? Yes, in some ways. Will things be good in the future? Yes, in some ways. What ways? I don’t know. No one knows. That’s how time works. If I’m going to take you seriously, post your polymarket track record that shows you outperforming everyone else. Until then, you’re just a doomer jerking off to the apocalypse.
lol. iamverysmart.
Literally no one who has ever posted that kind of reply has anything useful to contribute in over 12 years of that sub existing
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.
Never seen it not be an unconvincing cover for racism during my lifetime.
Chauvinism?
It’s literally a sin. Stop it.
Is that Roman pride?
You can love your Country, but pride or patriotism leads you down a path dangerous to your fellow man. Find a cause.
