Is it bad to be patriotic?

[squadbroken]

My problem with the Nolan Batmans is that they are played too straight for movies that are about a man in a bat costume fighting an evil clown or whatever

 

[warpus]

Hey MobBoss, I read your response at work but have been swamped. Best response I got from you ever, very polite, etc. so I just wanted to commend you for taking the time to write that the way you did.

 

[Phrossack]

So anyway.

Why should I be patriotic? Why should I love my country? What has it done to earn that? What makes it more worthy than the others?

What is better: to loudly and obnoxiously proclaim your love of your version of your country and to despise all those who do not, or to not worry about loving it while working to make it a better place? Not that being a patriot automatically makes you the former, it's just that in the US, it's considered noble to love your country and damning not to, to the point that this is often the case.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

So anyway.

Why should I be patriotic? Why should I love my country? What has it done to earn that? What makes it more worthy than the others?

What is better: to loudly and obnoxiously proclaim your love of your version of your country and to despise all those who do not, or to not worry about loving it while working to make it a better place? Not that being a patriot automatically makes you the former, it's just that in the US, it's considered noble to love your country and damning not to, to the point that this is often the case.

Welcome to the 19th century and Nationalism 101

And the answer is yes, you better love your country or we'll import someone else who does.

 

[MobBoss]

Hey MobBoss, I read your response at work but have been swamped. Best response I got from you ever, very polite, etc. so I just wanted to commend you for taking the time to write that the way you did.

Thanks Warpus for the kind words!

 

[Carras Dad]

My problem with the Nolan Batmans is that they are played too straight for movies that are about a man in a bat costume fighting an evil clown or whatever

also that they are supposed to be artistic masterpieces or whatever when they are about a man in a bat costume fighting an evil clown.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I consider patriotic to be loving your homeland and not the government. So yes, I am patriotic. You have to protect your own first. Yes it would be fine and dandy if we all saw ourselves as human beings, but let's face it, people will attack you based on where you live. So you got to stick together. Just like a man protects his family, a man should protect his homeland. If you aren't patriotic, you aren't a real man.

As for the government, it needs to be wiped out and started from scratch. Either that, or let the states secede.

I really like that definition of Patriotism. The American government has more or less been a group of thugs and crooks since 1860, but I still love my country. I do not, however, love the state.

I think "Attacking people based on where they live" is overblown though. I don't see that happening too often. Its far more likely to get attacked as blowback, through careless foreign policy, or even blind imperialism (See everyone who has been attacked by the United States since 1945) than "Because of where you live."

To give a more direct answer to the question, I am patriotic in the sense that I love my country no matter what, and that sort of patrioitism is a good thing. To blindly support the government no matter what is not.

 

[Traitorfish]

I am patriotic in the sense that I love my country no matter what, and that sort of patrioitism is a good thing.

I thought you were supposed to be an individualist?

 

[GhostWriter16]

The country isn't the same thing as the state.

 

[Traitorfish]

I didn't say it was. Individualism and statism aren't incompatible; just look at Hobbes, for whom the state is nothing more than the aggregate of individual self-interests. It's when you start trying to make a simultaneously claim on the primacy of the individual and the primacy of the national collective that it starts contradicting itself.

 

[Leoreth]

Can't one make the individual decision to care about this particular community? I think the individualism comes in where he doesn't expect others to show the same kind of patriotism.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The American government has more or less been a group of thugs and crooks since 1860, but I still love my country.

You couldn't resist spam posting for even one whole day could you?

 

[Carras Dad]

an anarchist who loves "his" country? well....

 

[Flying Pig]

Of course, the statement on that stone is self-proving: I'm reminded of a sign I saw in the all-ranks' mess at Okehampton which said no weapon's [sic] allowed in the mess. Entirely correct.

 

[civver_764]

You couldn't resist spam posting for even one whole day could you?

In what way is that 'spam posting'?

 

[Phrossack]

In what way is that 'spam posting'?

GW invariably brings his inveterate hatred of Lincoln into every thread he comments in, which tends to derail it.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Speaking of patriotism:

"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him." Abraham Lincoln

"We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privilege we have enjoyed." Abraham Lincoln

 

[Traitorfish]

Can't one make the individual decision to care about this particular community? I think the individualism comes in where he doesn't expect others to show the same kind of patriotism.

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 don't think that it's possible to reconcile individualism and patriotism to say that one could be patriotic without expecting it from others. If a certain kind of behaviour is virtuous, then we should expect it from everyone.* If we don't expect it from others, then it's not virtuous at all, it's merely a matter of personal sentiment. Thus, if patriotism is a virtue, as all self-described patriots seem to believe, then we expect it from everyone, and if patriotism is not expected from everyone, then it's not a virtue, simply a personal affection. Most self-described patriots tend to regard patriotism as virtuous, and tend to object to their patriotism being described as an affection. So, the proposed reconciliation doesn't seem viable.

(*That's assuming that we entertain any notion of virtue, of course. If we subscribe to a more egoistic anthropology, then we don't offer anything more than self-interested behaviour, or ask for anything else in return. But if we adopting egoism, then patriotism is precluded from the start, so it's fair to assume for our purposes that we're assuming some concept of virtue.)

 

[GhostWriter16]

GW invariably brings his inveterate hatred of Lincoln into every thread he comments in, which tends to derail it.

I wasn't trying to bring Lincoln into it specifically. I suppose I could have said "For a long time" and I could have made my point. I was saying that it started in 1860, and more or less continued on since. Nonetheless, I love my country even while hating my government.

Speaking of patriotism:

"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him." Abraham Lincoln

"We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privilege we have enjoyed." Abraham Lincoln

Yes, fine sounding words about liberty from the man who arrested tens of thousands of people without trial for things that would even make George W. Bush blush. You know who else "Sounded" like a great statesman? Adolf Hitler. Frankly, I care a heck of a lot more about actions.

I'd be more than happy to discuss St. Abraham with you in another thread or in PMs. Not here. I didn't mean to bring that tangent into it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You can't claim you weren't trying to bring it to Hitler-Lincoln. If you weren't trying, try not bringing up '1860', 'St. Abraham' or anything to do with the ACW in a thread that has nothing to do with it. Then you have the nerve to chastise someone over your dersail? God I am so sick of it.

And at least two Godwin violations in the same post. You help every discussion move straight to the drain.