Is it bad to be patriotic?

[Ziggy Stardust]

With a country you can have "material" relationship (since country is not a person, but a "matter" - so "personal" is a wrong word here).

I'm still a person.

And it's indeed the "material" relationship that is silly.

But when your grandfather dies, you can't have "personal" relationship with him any more - because he is not a person anymore, but just a corpse (according to Traitorfish at least). So how can you have a personal relationship with your deceased grandfather, but not with a (equally lifeless) country?

3 things.

Can you please stop acting as if what Traitorfish said, is relevant to what I'm saying?

You are saying "according to Traitorfish at least", but also use it as an argument yourself. Does this mean you agree with Traitorfish?

Lastly, if I have to explain how you can feel a personal emotional irrational response to a loved one who died and how this differs to a country, you fail the Turing test.

Why necessarily "the same"? Gosh - I don't even have "the same" emotional response to all my close relatives and loved ones together. I have a more or less different (which doesn't always mean - worse or better; stronger or weaker) emotional response towards each of my close relatives and loved ones.

You clearly don't have "the same" emotional response towards - for example - both your mother, your sister and your wife - do you?

"The same kind of", which is clear when you look at my question, since I said emotional response to close relatives and loved ones, instead of mentioning one particular relative or loved one.

edit: Can you please use the quote button to quote? Especially when you're mixing posts.

 

[Domen]

Does this mean you agree with Traitorfish?

Yes - I agree with Traitorfish here, in the sense that having emotional relationship with a corpse is just as silly as having emotional relationship with a country, if not more (after all - a corpse stinks, while a country not necessarily).

And since I know that you - just like Traitorfish - do not believe in God and / or in existence of human soul and / or in the afterlife, then I use this argument against you, because it should be convincing for a person with such beliefs.

edit: Can you please use the quote button to quote? Especially when you're mixing posts.

Copy & Paste is more comfortable to me. But OK - I will try to change this habit specially for you.

I'm still a person.

When you have emotional relationship with your dog, you are also a person. But your dog is not. So it cannot be "personal" as well. But if you claim otherwise (that it is enough when just one side in a particular relationship is "a person") - then the same applies to a relationship of a person towards a country.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yes - I agree with Traitorfish here, in the sense that having emotional relationship with a corpse is just as silly as having emotional relationship with a country, if not more (after all - a corpse stinks, while a country not necessarily).

And since I know that you - just like Traitorfish - do not believe in God and / or in existence of human soul and / or in the afterlife, then I use this argument against you, because it should be convincing for a person with such beliefs.

So because I don't believe in God, I don't believe in memories?

Do I have to explain to you that the personal relationship is not with the material corpse?

Are you in this to discuss or are you in it for endless argument?

That last one is an important one, and I want you to answer it honestly.

edit:

Copy & Paste is more comfortable to me. But OK - I will try to change this habit specially for you.

It was a request, not a demand.

 

[Domen]

Ziggy Stardust:

So because I don't believe in God, I don't believe in memories?

So because you believe in memories, you don't believe in knowledge about history?

Or in memories about what happened in your country during your lifetime? Or in memories of beautiful places in your country?

Do I have to explain to you that the personal relationship is not with the material corpse?

Then with what, considering that the person ceased to exist and was erased from the universe when dying?

Are you in this to discuss or are you in it for endless argument?

Discuss. And also to convince others to my views and change their views. But we don't agree, so we argue. Of course I try to keep it civil.

 

[Traitorfish]

One may not be able to have a personal relationship with a dead person, but one can certainly have had such a relationship. That's very different from any sort of personal relationship between impossible from the start. In the former, any perceived-relationship can be reasonably said to exist at the level of memory, while in the latter case any perceived-relationship can only be a fantasy, as much as perceiving that one has a relationship with Zeus or Buzz Lightyear.

What's more interesting, I think, is the way in which our perceived relationships to the dead or imaginary structure our relationships with the living. That my relationship to my cousins, for example, is structured around a mutual perceived-relationship to our deceased grandfather. Similarly, that the relationship of a religious community is structured around a mutual perceived-relationship to the object of worship- regardless of whether that object ever existed to begin with. In this, even the imaginary can take on a form of reality insofar as it represents a dimension of the reality of our shared practice. It becomes a real abstraction- although, of course, this means that the reality of the thing is very different from what we might perceive the thing to be.

 

[Domen]

That's very different from any sort of personal relationship between impossible from the start.

That's why I said that it is not personal relationship, but a different kind of emotional relationship than one between 2 persons.

Your emotional relationship with your dog is also not personal, since your dog is not a person.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ziggy Stardust:
So because you believe in memories, you don't believe in knowledge about history?

What?

Or in memories about what happened in your country during your lifetime? Or in memories of beautiful places in your country?

Sure I have emotional responses to memories of events occurring in a country. But that's not patriotism.

I did not interact with the country during those instances. And the emotional response is stronger with regard to the specific place that memory took place than the arbitrary border in which it occurred. But again, even that does not make that particular place special, beyond that it may trigger those memories. It's the memory that make it special, not the place.

I also had beautiful memories in other countries. Should I be patriotic towards all of them? Of course not. Patriotism goes well beyond a recollection of some fond memory happening in said country.

Then with what, considering that the person ceased to exist and was erased from the universe when dying?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Ruh0ewBVo

Discuss. And also to convince others to my views and change their views. But we don't agree, so we argue. Of course I try to keep it civil.

I doubt it since you seem to equate the emotional response one has towards a deceased love on with love towards the physical corpse. Not because you think that's the case, but because you are set to make the immaterial material.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Ruh0ewBVo

Please, at least post the Elaine Page version.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's why I said that it is not personal relationship, but a different kind of emotional relationship than one between 2 persons. Your emotional relationship with your dog is also not personal, since your dog is not a person.

What kind of relationship do you imagine it to be, then?

 

[Domen]

What?

You believe in memories? Even though you know that these are just chemical reactions inside your brain which are supposed to appease your suffering (another chemical reaction) after the loss of the loved one, so that you can quickly recover and find another partner for procreation, in order to ensure your species survival? And the same applies to emotions in general. Everything shaped by evolution. But I wonder what is the evolutional origin of patriotism - it has no purpose. Maybe it is a genetic defect? Just like for example art, culture, literature - who needs it for species survival? Genetic defects, apparently.

How can you have "emotional relationship" with chemical reactions which create visions of the past in your brain (i.e. memories)? This is silly.

I understand emotional relationship during sex - but nothing more than this. How can you believe in other such relationships at all?

What kind of relationship do you imagine it to be?

Certainly not any kind which would be justified from the perspective of species survival. Surely "patriotism" is a genetic defect that some people have.

Not because you think that's the case, but because you are set to make the immaterial material.

"Immaterial" - what the heck is this? Immaterial does not exist, as you surely must know. Memories and emotions are also material - they are just reactions of various chemical substances inside your brain. These substances are composed of molecules and these of atoms - so clearly material.

So you feel relationship with chemical reaction in itself, rather than with the object called "dead corpse of your grandpa"?

Both options are very silly.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Please, at least post the Elaine Page version.

Oh alright:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS2Th_qeBb4

Who's Elaine Page?

 

[Traitorfish]

Why is Domen adopting a faux-bioreductionist stance? Nobody here is arguing that line, so what's he supposed to be satirising? He's just making himself look a bit thick.

 

[Domen]

Nobody here is arguing that line, so what's he supposed to be satirising?

Your views on the existence, universe, life and its sense. Etc.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Oh alright:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS2Th_qeBb4

Who's Elaine Page?

Oh just the Julie Anthony of British musical theatre. No biggy.

EDIT.....haha, nicely done.

 

[Traitorfish]

Your views on the existence, universe, life and its sense. Etc.

Eh? I'm into phenomenology, not bioreductionism. All about the authenticity of subjective meaning, me!

 

[Dachs]

Eh? I'm into phenomenology, not bioreductionism. All about the authenticity of subjective meaning, me!

And I think you're both semicomprehensible loons.

 

[Traitorfish]

And I think you're both semicomprehensible loons.

Ah, but I'm semi-incomprehensible because I work with weird jargon, counter-intuitive assumptions and tenuous logical constructions. Domen's semi-incomprehensible because the things he says don't make any sense. Difference.

 

[Mise]

Pride is a deadly sin. Jesus taught us to love thy neighbour. Being proud of one's nation is spitting in the face of God.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You can't possibly mean the Canadians?

I think it is possible to be patriotic without hating others in the least. Again, that is really more the province of excessive nationalism. Even those who are horribly oppressed still frequently love their country and draw a distinction between it and the government that treats them like subhumans.

But I do appreciate the irony that many of those who are Christians are some the worst offenders in regard to overly nationalistic zeal and enmity towards other countries. They seem to think they will be forgiven for all their sins, so they don't really have to practice what they preach.

 

[Oruc]

I didn't realise nationalism always had a bad connotation.