> disappointingly un-diverse
I... What does this even mean? Are you ashamed of your heritage?
I... What does this even mean? Are you ashamed of your heritage?
I haven't done a DNA ancestry test yet, but I imagine I would be pretty happy to learn that there were several peoples/races?/cultures behind me, beyond my apparent South Asian heritage. This does not imply that I am ashamed of my origins - quite the contrary, in fact - but that I imagine it would be nice to ... be more, a citizen of the world, in a fashion.
I would expect this outlook of anyone with a cosmopolitan upbringing by default, as well as anyone who has exposed himself or herself to other cultures via media (books, movies, etc..).
Just take pride in who and what you are and where you came from.
That said, I don't understand how I've can be "proud" of which country you were born in, makes no sense to me.
Only whites seem to have this internal conflict, and that makes far less sense than being proud of the society your people created.
I guess it all depends where you draw the line, do you feel proud of your parents? Some people will say "No, I only feel proud about what I accomplished myself." And that's ok, that's his point of view, we could say this is a subjective matter, from my point of view, I feel proud of who I'm, I'm proud of my parents, and then I can extend that line and say I'm proud of my community, my city, my country, my civilization, I'm proud of being part of humanity, obviously that "proudness" will increase when that line is nearer to me, in other words the more relatable to myself the prouder I can be.
It's Paddy's day on Saturday - how does that celebration square with your claim?
I think one problem is that everyone has a different definition of the word 'pride'. Over here in Europe a lot of people think of pride as something you feels when you actively achieve something.
Ran a marathon? You can be proud of this!
You were born white/black/asian/... in France/Turkey/Spain? There is not much to be proud of, at the end of the day it's just pure luck who your parents are and in which culture you are born.
Schopenhauer said it best:
"The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen.
The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes.
But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
Also, to echo another commenter here, take the classic quote from Samuel Johnson: "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
Also pride is considered to be the worst of the seven deadly sins for good reason. So tempting yet can be so poisonous.
Proud to be black or proud to be white.... Getting iffy depending on context. Of course, the opposite would be troublesome, ashamed to be black, or ashamed to be white.
I hope people feel their heritage is "cool" but I'd rather not have people feel their heritage or a different heritage is "better".
On the other hand, I feel that there are some societies that indeed contributed more to civilization than others. I don't think that's deniable. But I mean as a person one should not feel "better" or "worse" than any other person because of heritage.
As for feeling "better" I agree with you, only that pride is not necessarily a feeling of superiority. In most cases it is an acknowledgement of something related to the individual that he or she feels is inherently good. Not everyone associates good with better.
I did the same thing - my Ancestry test came back with a whole lot of "Western Europe" - even more than I expected, actually.