So, we haven’t achieved our ideals, or the ideal culture/society of acceptance, inclusiveness, openess. (I think I’m responding to Dinsdale mostly here) In the overall all long term view, thats probably ok as long as we continue to strive and make progress towards them in the short and midterm. In a society that prides itself on individual freedom, are you surprised that it hasn’t been as rapid or even as you’d like? I don’t expect that we will ever truly reach our collective ideals. They change over time. We reach one goal, one mile post and another takes it’s place. Sometimes a refinement of the original, sometimes a variation of the original, maybe next time it will be something completely new. 70 years ago, desegregation wasn’t even thought of. Today we’re working towards refining and achieving civil rights and recognition not only for african Americans, but for groups that were considered mentally ill relatively recently. The founding ideals as written are still the same, but what will the specific application of those ideals look like 20, 30 or more years from now?
I don’t know this, but I believe that the next 20 to 40 years will see quite a bit of progress toward those ideals of openess, inclusiveness and acceptance.
The business/consumer culture you talked about, I agree, it’s not a good thing. But I think it’s a symptom, that will change in the coming decades.
Nope, we ain’t perfect. It would be foolish to expect us to be. But instead of condemning the whole with disdain, acknowldge the faults and do what you can to correct them while supporting tue whole. Our society is still one shaped and directed by the people of that society, not the government or corporations. If it weren’t we’d still be living like it was the 50s or worse.
I love my country like I love my house: I can recognize its faults and I want to work to improve them, without insisting that it’s already better than everyone else’s house simply by virtue of being mine.
So, yes, I’m a patriot- in that I recognize that America can be better, and part of improving upon it is to learn from other countries’ examples.
I am not a patriot - I think the idea of nation-states are bad, anyway, and the sequence of idiots in mine (in charge and keeping them there, both) don’t help my opinion.
What I *do *love over everywhere else I’ve ever been is the actual physical landscape of my country, from the rocks through the geography to the animals and plants. There needs to be a word for “Patriotic, but only if all the people are gone…”
I’m curious about your idea that nation-states are bad. If you had a magic wand, what would you replace them with? Anarchy? One world government?
Or would you just make everyone else disappear like a doubly-bad Thanos?
I hope you are right, and that I am being overly pessimistic, rather than realistic. Just seems that - to the extent acceptance/inclusiveness/social justice/sustainability/etc are goals, they far too often seem to be far secondary to “I wanna get as much for MYSELF as I can, do whatever I can to KEEP whatever I have, and keep OTHER people from improving their situations (which would make MY position look worse in comparison.)” Add in a good share of demonization of the “OTHER” - whether domestic or external.
The thinking seems to be - so long as I maximize MY interests, then yeah, I don’t mind if other people’s interests are met. But I sure as hell don’t wanna give up anything MYSELF to help someone else.
Like I said, I hope I am mistaken, and time proves me wrong. Just the number of selfish, stupid people seem to greatly exceed the magnanimous. Even in terms of generosity, people like to support THEIR causes - through churches and such, rather than the general welfare.
And Americans seem so damned afraid of everything. We want to dominate the world, make everyone kowtow to us - and are willing to ransom our childrens’ futures and shortchange social issue by grossly overspending on the military.
I think that most studies will show that younger generations are more tolerant and liberal on most issues than their elders - who will cooperate by dying off. Unless the younger folk skew increasingly conservative as they age themselves…
Yes.
I don’t think thats honest. I think its just that people who reject patriotism realize other nations also have those same benefits without the baggage.
Pretty much every good thing you can say about The US, you can also say about Canada too. But Canada doesn’t have our baggage. Canada has imperfections, but nations like that show you can have the good things the US has but also have less baggage and bad things too.
Can you explain how I’m projecting? Patriotism is usually synonymous with nationalism, which is also synonymous with anti-democracy movements, militarism and oppression of marginalized groups.
I was actually thinking of Germany when I mentioned how patriotism was tied into oppression of minority groups.
I have no problem praising America when we do good things. When the tsunami hit in Indonesia, the US sent navy boats there to help purify drinking water. Things like that are great. The US is currently the world leader in scientific R&D which benefits the entire world.
As for your other claim, like it or not patriotism and nationalism tend to be linked with exclusionary social beliefs (nativism, racism, sexism, religious bigotry, etc) as well as authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism.
There are efforts to break patriotism down into constructive vs blind, or patriotism vs nationalism, or moderate vs severe, etc. in an effort to distinguish the destructive kinds from the neutral or positive kinds.
The moderate forms of constructive patriotism are fine. But the other kind tends to be associated with the other unpleasant traits I mentioned above (exclusionary beliefs, authoritarianism, anti-democracy beliefs, militarism, etc).
When I think of patriotism I think of this song about political science
How do you separate the yolk from the white when handling quail eggs?
What was incorrect about it?
I don’t disagree. I used to think a lot like that myself. It gets tiring after a while.
An interesting thing happened the other day. Listening to local talk radio on my drive home, they were talking about millenials and post millenials were more accepting of and willing to try socialism. Oh My God, the callers. The gist of all the call-ins save one was “those dumb punks don’t know what they’re talking about and how evil socialism is, they have no experience, they think all it means is to each according their needs and don’t know the part that says from each according to their ability, we lived through the cold war, WE KNOW!”
I think the truth is, us older farts may be the dumb ones. Propagandized, ignorant, and I wouldn’t consider Russia or the USSR to have been a shining example of socialism.
Someone compared their patriotism to parenting. In some ways thats a pretty good comparison. At some point you have to look back, accept the progress and goals you achieved and the failures too, and then let it go into the hands of the next generation.
We’ve come a long way from the country we were. We have a long way to go yet.
I love my country because it’s mine. I know there are countries comparable to it, but this one is mine, warts and all. It’s a marriage, there are days when your spouse does things that make you wonder how they survived the head injury. But you love your spouse anyway, because they aren’t a drooling moron all the time. My patriotism is a bit like that.
I think the reality, Dinsdale, lies somewhere between you and I. Sometimes closer to you, sometimes closer to me.
Right now the US looks like a drooling moron. Give 10 or 15 years, lets see what changes society brings about inspite of the government and old people, and people living in fear.
Don’t live in fear.
A passage from Kahlil Gibran’s “A Poet’s Voice” is the definitive statement on the subject as far as I’m concerned.
I have a yearning for my beautiful country, and I love its people because of their misery. But if my people rose, stimulated by plunder and motivated by what they call “patriotic spirit” to murder, and invaded my neighbor’s country, then upon the committing of any human atrocity I would hate my people and my country.
Moderator Note
You are, of course, not required to respond to any post in any thread. But as you’ve chosen to do so, you are at best walking the line of trolling, here. Knock it off.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Responding to the points quoted above:
My process for some time has been switching back and forth between outrage/indignation and apathy. Funny how even apathy can be wearying over time! :rolleyes:
I generally figure the only thing I can really have much control over is how I live my life. So rather than paying much heed to news of causes, I simply try to be a decent human being. Sometimes I succeed better than other times.
Your remarks re: parenting and the next generation resound with me. A while back, when my adult children were criticizing something or another my wife and I had done when they were kids, I decided that so long as every decision I made had been thought out, well intentioned, and based on the information I had at the time - rather than out of my convenience, cheapness, whatever - then I was content I’d done a decent job of parenting, and wouldn’t beat myself up over the past.
For the past year or so, I’ve really felt that people of my age (I’m in my late 50s - but I’d probably say anyone 50 or older) are really yesterday’s news. Whatever our successes or failures, it was time to pass the baton on to the younger folk. Really disappointing to see things like the idealistic baby-boomers becoming the self-centered retirees. I’m not overly impressed with the efforts my generation has made. I eagerly await to see what the next generation will bring.
And no - I do not live in fear. Perhaps that is related to my dislike of airport security theater, excessive imprisonment, Patriot Act invasions of privacy, and such. So I go where I want when I want. And should lightning - or a stray bullet - or a terror bomb - catch me, well, at least I hold my life ransom trying to avoid it.
Was so
Nothing I’d care to impose on anyone else. It’s enough to just try to be me without aligning myself with groups I have little in common with apart from where we live with respect to arbitrary lines on a map.