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.

“Ah, but you see, dedicating 99% of the space to cars makes sense, since 99% of traffic here is personal vehicles. Aren’t I smart?”

“…”

“Ok, I agree to a temporary bike lane, but if bicycle travel doesn’t increase we get rid of it immediately. It will of course be just this one street, we don’t want to risk a bike network succeeding.”