By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Whichever one you are living in, assuming your goal isn’t to harm it. The point of patriotism is encouraging people to not destroy the place they live.
I think it’s embarrassing that people had such a horrible reaction to established presidential election rules, i.e. a potential ELECTED 10 year term for trump. Like wow, the staggering ignorance. All by people who wouldn’t dare give up their identity by looking something up on the internet or getting a library card.
I agree. This era reminds me forcefully of the Nixon era, in which one side insisted that everybody had to make a public show of patriotism, which meant in practice endorsing Nixon and the war, flying the flag, and inflicting pain on your enemies, and the other side saying that they loved the country when it lived up to its ideals but couldn’t feel patriotic, let alone want to publicly display it, when the country was turning authoritarian and hateful.
Simply by not being publicly patriotic in the “correct” ways, they therefore were demonstrating their hate for America. “Love it or leave it.” Our side gets to define “love.” And it’s not any of that woke hippie shit about loving your neighbor. The right would have so loved the term “woke” back then.
I’m 68 as of last week.
The only time I felt the stirrings of patriotism was when I was in US Navy boot camp in the early 1980s singing songs in the Bluejacket Choir.
Right now I am angry, embarrassed and frustrated.
But I live here and maintain my obligations so I have a place to rest my head.
Because it’s unethical and in the long run usually self destructive to ruin the place you are living in. Especially if you aren’t extremely wealthy or powerful.
I think there is a bit of a gap between “affectatiously patriotic” and “ruining the place you live in for fun and profit”. (Note, one can do plenty of the latter while waving as many flags as you want.)
I have zero emotional attachment to my car. If it were to explode and burn in the parking lot tomorrow, I would be irritated about the disruption to my life and the financial hit I would take replacing the vehicle based on whatever partial payment I would receive from the insurance company, but I would feel no particular emotional loss. It is merely the mechanical conveyance which serves to transport me and my cargo from one place to another.
Yet it would be foolish in the extreme to smash my car into a wall or drive it off a cliff while I myself am inside it.
No one in my family has been patriotic so it’s hard to have that motivation. Neither my parents, grandparents or others in lineage ever expressed patriotism for their country.
I’ve talked with most of them and read their letters home from military encampments. They were at best acculturated to support the other personnel and try not to become a casualty. None of them were very much interested in serving their country.
I’m more into civic responsibility to the greater extent: send in personal info to Selective Service and talk to recruiters (at 18 yrs old), vote in elections, follow most laws, listen to and read government announcements.
It is unethical for me to leave a country where racism drove me out? Robert Mugabe decided my birth-right citizenship was null and void. I am fortunate in that I obtained other citizenship.
But I am first and foremost Zimbabwean, even if I can’t renew my passport. My friends are mostly Zimbabwean, while my chiShona is rusty, I can still speak to my country people.
(Also the pedant in me wishes to correct: “in which you are living”.)
As we say, “zvakapressa” - a neoligsm for “it is pressing”, primarily in regard to government authority pushing down on the people - but usually said with self-aware irony. Zimbabwean humour is probably second only to Poland in self depreciation.
This is exactly right imo. Patriotism is wanting your country to be the best it can be. If you think it’s already great and there’s nothing more to do, that’s nationalism. If you think your country is better than most others, that’s chauvinism. If you think your country is the best except for a big part of the people in it, that’s fascism.
Trumpism is a mix of nationalism, chauvinism, and fascism. There’s no patriotism about it at all.
Here’s an article on the topic that has stuck with me:
I remember a slogan from around the Vietnam era, when some people had bumper stickers saying “my country, right or wrong”: “My country: right the wrongs.”