Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
Traitorfish:
A completely baseless claim.
Why do you think so? You assume that a patriot shows less loyalty to all human beings than to those of shared national identity? This may be true, but it doesn't per se mean that he shows less loyalty to all human beings than a humanist does.
Assuming that loyalty can be measured in scale 1 to 10, we may have a humanist who is loyal to other human beings to the extent of 9, and a patriot who is loyal to other human beings to the extent of 9 - except of human beings of shared national identity, to whom he is loyal to the extent of 10.
Overall, such a patriot is - statistically - more loyal to other humans than such a humanist - considering that this particular humanist didn't exceed level 9 of loyalty to anyone, while this patriot is equally (9) loyal to vast majority of human beings, but even more (10) loyal to a group with shared identity.
This patriot is a "better person" and he does both things well.
On the other hand, we can also imagine a patriot who shows the same level of loyalty (for example - 9) to all human beings - both those with shared national identity and everyone else. The reason for him being both a patriot and a humanist instead of just a humanist - despite not showing more loyalty to people with shared identity than to everyone else (like in previous example) - is motivation of his loyalty. His loyalty to people with shared national identity is characterized by dual / twofold motivation, while his motivation to be loyal to other human beings is homogeneous - like in case of any humanist regarding all people.
So a patriot & humanist in one person has equally strong motivation to be loyal to everyone, as any humanist. On the other hand, a patriot & humanist has also some additional (let's call it "patriotic") motivation to be loyal to people with shared identity, apart from his "humanist" motivation to be loyal to anyone.
Overall it means that patriotism is a very positive phenomenon. Negative phenomenon, on the other hand, is lack of humanism.
Sadly - most people on this planet probably belong to the group of neither humanists, nor patriots - considering their behaviour.
But it is of no importance what the set of written signs "civilisation" meant in the past, before the 18th century. Even if it meant something different, people of that time surely had other written & spoken signs to denote what we call "civilisation". Even if it wasn't one word, they described it in many words.
You claim that the random set of Roman letters "civiilisation" in the past was equal in meaning to what today is denoted by another random set of letters: "civility". But we are not discussing civility in this thread - we are discussing things which we denote while using the word "civilisation".
Language is just language. Semantics is just semantics. This is of no importance.
What is important for our discussion here, is what exactly we denote with use of this random set of Roman letters: "civilisation".
And we denote roads, cities, buildings, human-made material objects, but also political organization, system of administration, law, culture, citizens, etc.
So it is a complex, composite being and construct. And certainly not just ideological.
It is certainly no more ideological than the phenomena of "family".
After all, all people on this planet are related. We all descent from just one couple of common ancestors.
So "family" is a primarily ideological concept - unless we say that all 7,000,000,000+ people are one family.
But Christianity is not about believing in the sanctity of churches (or in the sanctity of any other material objects).
Christianity can and did in fact for long time (at the beginning) exist without churches.
Actually "church" denotes not just the building in which Christians gather, it denotes the community or the gathering of Christians.
Civilisation - on the other hand - without material, human-made objects, does not exist.
I fully agree with Aleksey here.
A completely baseless claim.
Why do you think so? You assume that a patriot shows less loyalty to all human beings than to those of shared national identity? This may be true, but it doesn't per se mean that he shows less loyalty to all human beings than a humanist does.
Assuming that loyalty can be measured in scale 1 to 10, we may have a humanist who is loyal to other human beings to the extent of 9, and a patriot who is loyal to other human beings to the extent of 9 - except of human beings of shared national identity, to whom he is loyal to the extent of 10.
Overall, such a patriot is - statistically - more loyal to other humans than such a humanist - considering that this particular humanist didn't exceed level 9 of loyalty to anyone, while this patriot is equally (9) loyal to vast majority of human beings, but even more (10) loyal to a group with shared identity.
This patriot is a "better person" and he does both things well.
On the other hand, we can also imagine a patriot who shows the same level of loyalty (for example - 9) to all human beings - both those with shared national identity and everyone else. The reason for him being both a patriot and a humanist instead of just a humanist - despite not showing more loyalty to people with shared identity than to everyone else (like in previous example) - is motivation of his loyalty. His loyalty to people with shared national identity is characterized by dual / twofold motivation, while his motivation to be loyal to other human beings is homogeneous - like in case of any humanist regarding all people.
So a patriot & humanist in one person has equally strong motivation to be loyal to everyone, as any humanist. On the other hand, a patriot & humanist has also some additional (let's call it "patriotic") motivation to be loyal to people with shared identity, apart from his "humanist" motivation to be loyal to anyone.
Overall it means that patriotism is a very positive phenomenon. Negative phenomenon, on the other hand, is lack of humanism.
Sadly - most people on this planet probably belong to the group of neither humanists, nor patriots - considering their behaviour.
But it is of no importance what the set of written signs "civilisation" meant in the past, before the 18th century. Even if it meant something different, people of that time surely had other written & spoken signs to denote what we call "civilisation". Even if it wasn't one word, they described it in many words.
You claim that the random set of Roman letters "civiilisation" in the past was equal in meaning to what today is denoted by another random set of letters: "civility". But we are not discussing civility in this thread - we are discussing things which we denote while using the word "civilisation".
Language is just language. Semantics is just semantics. This is of no importance.
What is important for our discussion here, is what exactly we denote with use of this random set of Roman letters: "civilisation".
And we denote roads, cities, buildings, human-made material objects, but also political organization, system of administration, law, culture, citizens, etc.
So it is a complex, composite being and construct. And certainly not just ideological.
It is certainly no more ideological than the phenomena of "family".
After all, all people on this planet are related. We all descent from just one couple of common ancestors.
So "family" is a primarily ideological concept - unless we say that all 7,000,000,000+ people are one family.
But Christianity is not about believing in the sanctity of churches (or in the sanctity of any other material objects).
Christianity can and did in fact for long time (at the beginning) exist without churches.
Actually "church" denotes not just the building in which Christians gather, it denotes the community or the gathering of Christians.
Civilisation - on the other hand - without material, human-made objects, does not exist.
I fully agree with Aleksey here.
