An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
Chauvinism ≠ nationalism
Ireland and quebec are nationalist, they want to become independent from englad. Its about sovereignty.
Chauvinism is fanatical adoration of a person, a group or a belief like the maga side of the republican.
How many languages outside of English even have a word for patriotism?
What a dumbass take.
The difference is much simpler. Patriotism for internal conflicts, nationalism for external conflicts. Both for manufactured Boogeymen fueled by malicious propaganda.
imo, actual patriotism would be more like “I want to make my house as good as I can.”
You don’t have to think your country is the best to be patriotic with respect to that country.
Nah, it’s very subjective. Idealistically patriotism is more like “I want to make the common house everyone on the street lives in more pleasant to live in for everyone.”
Realistically it’s more like “I want to make my house how I think it should be better. Why doesn’t everyone else do the same?”
Each individual has their own idea about what’s the patriotic thing to do, even if that ends up to be the wrong thing in someone else’s view. That’s why I say it’s about internal conflicts. Your patriotism and your neighbor’s can come at odds with each other in various points. Neither of you might be wrong, but you’ll still have to pick something that goes against those beliefs eventually. Better for you, worse for someone else, but pat oneself on the back with the excuse “the good of the many”.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
State-level patriotism also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
And there is no valid reason to have some special relation to your country. It is natural to feel ties with the place you were born or the place you spent a lot of time in, this is human psychology, but your country is nothing but a piece of land that was marked by somebody as belonging to some virtual entity.
We should ditch state-level patriotism as a concept and treat local-level patriotism as a natural bias. We should strive to help people of all places and origins, and come together as one.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
patriotism is a very personal thing, by the very definition of it. You simply cannot apply it outside of yourself. If you are outwardly patriotic. You have already fucked up.
I would argue there is a valid reason to have some form of special relation to your country, your country is simply, not any other existing country. If you live in estonia, you have a fully digital government. If you live in america you have one of the foundational democratic governments of modern society, as well as a particular cultural history (though turbulent, rather remarkable) as well as a particularly unusual geography and land usage. If you live in europe, you live in a moderately to high density populated area, that is highly socialized, and cooperative. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The fundamental problem here is thinking that europe is worse than america, simply because it’s different. What you’re applying here is a soviet level utilitarian “collective” identity.
Though i agree with the state level patriotism, that’s fucking weird, stop doing that.
It is one thing to acknowledge the positives of a place you’re in, and other to be proud of some arbitrary landmass.
Europe is not worse than America, both have their upsides and downsides. I can say that as a Russian, and I also acknowledge the positives and negatives of living in Russia in general and my city in particular. All are good at something, and bad at something else.
At the same time, I do not want to leave my city. I have people here that I’m warmly related to and I feel safe and comfortable here; I know the city, know its unwritten rules, I feel myself at home. There are places in here I intimately know and adore. Moving cities would be a major pain for me, and at first I wouldn’t feel at my place; moving countries is straight up insane for me.
But I know this is because I’m used to the place and know it deeply, and feel comfy with that arrangement; if I would leave, I would feel nostalgic of times I’ve spent here, and I would always react more to any events that happen here, even when I leave. This is all my bias, and it is something we all have. I guess this is the core of local-level patriotism.
But it doesn’t make me hold special feelings towards the entirety of Russia. I have no ties with Siberia, to which I’ve never been, and to me it would be more foreign than, say, forests of Finland, which are way closer to what I see in my area and are more intimately familiar. Kamchatka is exotic to me, not familiar and warm. And I fail to understand why it should be different, other than for the will of the people in power who want to create some special Russian identity for me to be proud of.
Europe is not worse than America, both have their upsides and downsides. I can say that as a Russian, and I also acknowledge the positives and negatives of living in Russia in general and my city in particular. All are good at something, and bad at something else.
are their upsides to living in russia? Seems like right now wouldn’t be a particularly good time. Really the only thing i can think of off the top of my head is piracy, and maybe some more lax internet rules. But that’s about it.
Your post pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter in completion.
There’s no “special” reason to view the adults you grew up with as better or worse caretakers. Statistically, it’s likely they’re equivalent to many others.
Still, this over application of logic refuses to let us be enthusiastic about anything unless there’s a scientifically documented reason towards it. It’s nice to have reasons to adore something, even if that thing is a country - but the comic is making the point that you should still want to find flaws in and improve that thing.
Sure! I just think that this particular flavor of enthusiasm often serves as a slippery slope towards nationalism, and is often intended that way.
Which is why I see it as a rather toxic kind of mentality. There are many things to be enthusiastic about - people’s unity, new discoveries and achievements, or simply your cat coming for hugs.
None of them have terrible potential outcomes.
Our obsession with owning land and borders will be the death of us all.
Like, without hyperbole, if we all die, it will be because of our attachment to the concept of “owning land” and having to draw imaginary lines across ground and rock and water to signify who owns what.
But when you step back and really think about it, it makes zero sense if you actually care about an equitable world where people aren’t hurting each other. It makes zero sense from a cosmic perspective, as this is a rock flying around a star, it has been here longer than us and will outlast us to a degree that our presence here, no matter what we do, will be a brief blip in cosmic time. We have no legacy, no real connection to the dirt below us other than how it gave us life. And yet claim ownership over it?
It makes no sense from a material perspective either, all borders do is reduce the flow of goods and services, creates artificial limits on who can go where creating “pressure zones” that eventually explode over and become migration disasters, and of course the people who pretend to rule these patches of dirt and rock and water and will send millions of people to death to preserve this roleplay. And we all cheer and defend this concept with all our heart.
Make it make sense.
Moreover, the entire concept of ownership is really just “you’ll face violence from other people if you try to take that away, one way or another”. That’s it.
Universe doesn’t care who owns what, those are just objects in space.
Sometimes this concept is helpful; you probably want the police to step in if someone breaks into your house (universe couldn’t care less). Sometimes it’s extremely dangerous, like when country leaders threaten others with nuclear war.
In either case, we should seriously revamp our relationships with land and property - that is for certain. Current ways are not sustainable and may lead to a disaster.
Don’t worry, if we ever become an interplanetary species, we’ll do the exact same fucking thing
](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1476886340-20161019.png){kind=link}
You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient.”
Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.
- Mark Twain, “A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court”