Is it bad to be patriotic?

[Traitorfish]

It's weird how GhostWriter is cool with presidents who practised slavery and committed ethnic cleansing, buts gets righteously indignant when one of them starts locking up white people. It's almost like he has some sort of unspoken racial preferences...

 

[Flying Pig]

I do think it's rather unfair to condemn most presidents for practicing slavery - it's not like nowadays when they knew that such things were wrong and yet did them anyway; slavery was just a fact of life. Ancient Greece was built on slavery, for example, and even Plato listed it as an aspect of the ideal society: it would be anachronous (spelling?) to condemn them for that, when they would probably think that our practice of allowing women into public life was just as wrong. Ethnic cleansing is a slightly different matter, but I think we do have to see at least some of the American-Native dealings from the American perspective: the Natives were hardly all the pure, idealised 'noble savages' that later history has occasionally painted them.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You know who else "Sounded" like a great statesman?

textbook.

 

[Leoreth]

I think patriotism goes some distance beyond simply "caring about the community". It generally involves some sort of demand to put the community before yourself, and not just in the sense of not being a total egotist, but of subsuming yourself under a collective will (if not a Rousseauian general will, then at least the aggregate of individual wills). Even if somebody volunteers for this subsumption, the act of doing so involves suspending one's individuality insofar as it conflicts with the collective will, so to describe it as "individualistic" is a bit like describing a suicide as "life-affirming".

I agree that usually people who call themselves patriots expect others to share their attitude towards the community (thinking of the "support our troops" or "why do you hate America" nonsense). But I don't think you have to "demand" this to be a patriot. Or at least, I have seen many people labeling themselves patriots while their behavior was intentionally one-directional. And I've stopped trying to find a definition of "proper" patriotism and just started to accept their self-identification.

I also wouldn't equate individualism with egotism. You can be an individualist and still donate your time or money to charity for example. If that's what makes you realize your individualism.

 

[Flying Pig]

I think patriotism goes some distance beyond simply "caring about the community". It generally involves some sort of demand to put the community before yourself, and not just in the sense of not being a total egotist, but of subsuming yourself under a collective will (if not a Rousseauian general will, then at least the aggregate of individual wills). Even if somebody volunteers for this subsumption, the act of doing so involves suspending one's individuality insofar as it conflicts with the collective will, so to describe it as "individualistic" is a bit like describing a suicide as "life-affirming".

I think that is the point at which patriotism becomes nationalism, but you're right that the divide is often difficult to spot.

 

[aelf]

I do think it's rather unfair to condemn most presidents for practicing slavery - it's not like nowadays when they knew that such things were wrong and yet did them anyway; slavery was just a fact of life. Ancient Greece was built on slavery, for example, and even Plato listed it as an aspect of the ideal society: it would be anachronous (spelling?) to condemn them for that, when they would probably think that our practice of allowing women into public life was just as wrong. Ethnic cleansing is a slightly different matter, but I think we do have to see at least some of the American-Native dealings from the American perspective: the Natives were hardly all the pure, idealised 'noble savages' that later history has occasionally painted them.

Wow, did you just apologise for slavery?

IIRC, I don't think the other Europeans minded what Hitler did all that much pre-Final Solution either. They only went to war because other countries became involved.

Seriously, white people.

Alright, you're a patriot. So what did you do for your country?

An armchair patriot is no patriot, but most likely a not-so-discreet jingoist.

Also, Domen seems to have avoided this post entirely.

 

[Flying Pig]

Wow, did you just apologise for slavery?

IIRC, I don't think the other Europeans minded what Hitler did all that much pre-Final Solution either. They only went to war because other countries became involved.

Seriously, white people.

If by 'apologise for slavery' you mean make a case that slavery is not wrong, then no. If you mean pointing out that somebody owning slaves in a society where that is normal is not necessarily an evil person, then yes. Hitler knew that what he was doing was wrong - that's why the Nazis worked so hard to cover it up - and so cannot use the same defence.

Yeah, okay, let's pretend some early American statesmen didn't write that they found slavery distasteful and contrary to their idea that all men are created equal. Or that many Germans/Europeans genuinely thought the Jews repelling and deserving of their fate and therefore that the whole thing about keeping them in camps was not evil.

Well, then, those Americans would have been wrong to keep slaves. You can't judge people by a moral standard to which they don't subscribe: it's like Mr Oppenheimer down the road damning me for eating pork, because he thinks it's immoral.

 

[aelf]

If by 'apologise for slavery' you mean make a case that slavery is not wrong, then no. If you mean pointing out that somebody owning slaves in a society where that is normal is not necessarily an evil person, then yes. Hitler knew that what he was doing was wrong - that's why the Nazis worked so hard to cover it up - and so cannot use the same defence.

Yeah, okay, let's pretend some early American statesmen didn't write that they found slavery distasteful and contrary to their idea that all men are created equal. Or that many Germans/Europeans genuinely thought the Jews repelling and deserving of their fate and therefore that the whole thing about keeping them in camps was not evil.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, okay, let's pretend some early American statesmen didn't write that they found slavery distasteful and contrary to their idea that all men are created equal. Or that many Germans/Europeans genuinely thought the Jews repelling and deserving of their fate and therefore that the whole thing about keeping them in camps was not evil.

I feel you've missed his point entirely aelf. He's not defending slavery, he's saying that at the time it was by and large morally acceptable (written into the constitution, after all). Even if some didn't subscribe to that view (that slavery was a-ok), they were in the clear minority.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I do think it's rather unfair to condemn most presidents for practicing slavery - it's not like nowadays when they knew that such things were wrong and yet did them anyway; slavery was just a fact of life. Ancient Greece was built on slavery, for example, and even Plato listed it as an aspect of the ideal society: it would be anachronous (spelling?) to condemn them for that, when they would probably think that our practice of allowing women into public life was just as wrong. Ethnic cleansing is a slightly different matter, but I think we do have to see at least some of the American-Native dealings from the American perspective: the Natives were hardly all the pure, idealised 'noble savages' that later history has occasionally painted them.

Slavery was already abolished in all the English colonies by the time of the Civil War. If we hadn't revolted and formed our own government run by our own aristocrats instead of yours, it would have been illegal in the American colonies as well.

And trying to rationalize what happened to the American Indian is beyond absurd. Of course many of them fought back in any way they could. Wouldn't you if you were put in their position?

 

[Flying Pig]

And trying to rationalize what happened to the American Indian is beyond absurd. Of course many of them fought back in any way they could. Wouldn't you if you were put in their position?

Well, I think we do have to try and explain it, rather than leaving it at 'the Americans were evil, so they killed Natives'. For example, the two societies had different ideas of what 'respecting each other's territory' meant: nomadic tribes held as 'theirs' far more land than that which was actually occupied by their people, because of the need to move around to hunt buffalo, and so objected rather strongly when American settlers going to California or Oregon drove their wagons through certain patches of empty countryside - which looked, to your average down-on-his-luck urban worker going across the USA with little money and very little clue, exactly like any other stretch of empty countryside. Their way of objecting, at times, was to kill those settlers. Of course, this doesn't mean that ethnic cleansing is any less wrong, but it does mean that we can understand the past, rather than refusing to empathise with the motivations of people involved and putting it all down to 'evil'. If nothing else, that latter approach makes it all to easy for atrocities to happen again.

 

[Dachs]

I feel you've missed his point entirely aelf. He's not defending slavery, he's saying that at the time it was by and large morally acceptable (written into the constitution, after all). Even if some didn't subscribe to that view (that slavery was a-ok), they were in the clear minority.

So immoral things become morally acceptable if a majority condones them?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So immoral things become morally acceptable if a majority condones them?

Immoral to us now, moral to them then.

 

[civver_764]

Well in that case there's no such thing as morality is there?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I wouldn't know.

 

[civver_764]

Yeah man me neither

 

[Dachs]

Immoral to us now, moral to them then.

Except it wasn't moral to everybody, that's the point. (And in that specific instance, it wasn't even moral to the people who were doing it, after the fact.)

 

[Flying Pig]

Except it wasn't moral to everybody, that's the point. (And in that specific instance, it wasn't even moral to the people who were doing it, after the fact.)

Personally, I believe that morality is a private matter (if you think you're doing the right thing, you are), but would separate finding a rational explanation for something from excusing it. One can explain Hitler's reasons for ordering the Holocaust without taking away from the evil of ordering it.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Well, I think we do have to try and explain it, rather than leaving it at 'the Americans were evil, so they killed Natives'. For example, the two societies had different ideas of what 'respecting each other's territory' meant: nomadic tribes held as 'theirs' far more land than that which was actually occupied by their people, because of the need to move around to hunt buffalo, and so objected rather strongly when American settlers going to California or Oregon drove their wagons through certain patches of empty countryside - which looked, to your average down-on-his-luck urban worker going across the USA with little money and very little clue, exactly like any other stretch of empty countryside. Their way of objecting, at times, was to kill those settlers. Of course, this doesn't mean that ethnic cleansing is any less wrong, but it does mean that we can understand the past, rather than refusing to empathise with the motivations of people involved and putting it all down to 'evil'. If nothing else, that latter approach makes it all to easy for atrocities to happen again.

I think you have watched far too many Hollywood movies. You should at least try to balance it a bit by watching Dances With Wolves and Little Big Man.


Link to video.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Except it wasn't moral to everybody, that's the point. (And in that specific instance, it wasn't even moral to the people who were doing it, after the fact.)

If there isn't universal consensus on what is moral, than who is to tell someone else what is and isn't moral. At some point it breaks down to a difference of opinion. It is easy to look back and say that something wad clearly immoral, but we all agree on that now. When it is a subject of intense debate, who knows what is and isn't moral? And then there is the tricky situations of differening moral standards accross cultures.

Double confusion when you are judging morality across cultures and time. When looking back at 18th century America, it could be argued you are doing just that.