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Comment by AnotherGoodName | Hacker News Reader

From an outside perspective the extreme nationalism over "what is Macedonia" just gets weird. As in riots over a name change;

Riots in Greece: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/thousands-of-g...

Riots on Macendonia: https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-name-change-protest-studen...

The people protesting weren't alive in the hey day of Alexander The Great and hero worshipping like this in any case is pretty weird. They weren't around when the empire Alexander conquered existed. Yet people will riot if you suggest Alexander was either Greek or Macedonian depending on who hears you say it. His country was a completely different nation to the modern nations in the area. Yet there's some tribalistic instinct that's getting triggered here that leads to people going pretty much insane over this.

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People often get intense over perceived heritage. That tends to be true from the US to Japan and everywhere inbetween.

The typical person will almost always seek to wrap their self up in - associate with - an identity greater than their own existence. Whether that's a sports team, or Alexander the Great, or a long dead empire or culture, or the success of another person/company/thing. It's seemingly so common as to apply to almost everyone on the planet I'd wager.

I think even unusual persons - those able to stand apart from standard tribalism - end up doing it to one degree or another. For example even if you focus on work, or art, instead of relating yourself to typically tribalistic things culturally, you end up wrapping your identity up in that work/art/stuff/hobby (consciously or subconsciously).

Have you ever seen people on forums lead a comment with: "I'm from such and such place, and here's how we do a thing" - they're borrowing credibility for their self, from some past people that built that credibility. I'm from Greenland and here's why we're so amazing and why you suck so much. It's exceptionally common all over discussion forums. They've wrapped themselves up in an identity greater than their self, they want to associate with it and steal some of the perceived value/amazingness (that they weren't responsible for creating).

Are those people not part of the culture that they reference? They're literally telling you how they do things, as a member of said culture.

Are people not allowed now to reference successful methods that they practice, and their origin for social proof, lest they be too uppity? That's a weird take.

If they aren't part responsible for the referenced culture, as a member of it, than who is? (Forgetting for a moment that this is irrelevant, to the point in question, and the question is solely being used to tear the person down).

That's not why people do it so extremely frequently.

You could just argue in favor of the method. That's not what they're doing, they're looking to capture: I'm better than other people because of where I come from, my culture is superior and I'm part of that culture.

Otherwise you could just drop the location identity and argue the point by itself. They want the easy credibility capture, it's a form of virtue signaling (and all you have to do is location drop and you get magic virtue points, even if you didn't earn any of those points).

Nah. You're over-reacting to an extremely common, normal, and acceptable social tool because you have an agenda. What that is could be a couple of things, from a petty dislike of anyone who has anything to be proud about to an imbalanced flinch reflex against any cultural affinity.

Referencing the method's origins offers social proof that it works. That's often a critical aspect of persuasion. It's completely normal and common. "Credibility capture" is an invented and weird term, and it would both apply and not apply here in the inverse that you would want it to.

In the manner that it applies when offering a positive connotation, again, social proof is necessary much of the time.

In the manner that it doesn't apply when attempting negative connotation, this person has every right to "capture credibility" from the culture to which they belong; especially when referencing a cultural method.

This is a nightmare autistic-style conversation, by the way. In your attempt to de-normalize the normal. Appreciate it.

> They've wrapped themselves up in an identity greater than their self, they want to associate with it and steal some of the perceived value/amazingness (that they weren't responsible for creating).

I agree with most of your post.

However, there’s also the desire to paint one’s own context, biases and giving credit to the shoulders one stands on.

How can you differentiate between negative and positive intentions of communicating one’s context? Just by (often faked) humility? And how do you spot the fake?

It is people who feel inferior looking to attach themselves to something they perceive as great. It is very difficult for many people to find meaning in their lives, so they fall into the excessive fandom / tribalistic / nationalistic / etc mentality when they do not manage to find meaning and satisfaction elsewhere.

I don't find it weird, but it is a testament to many things about human nature, and the successes and failures of society and civilization. Some of those things are positive, many are negative.

I predict that the "belittle them until morale improves" tactic won't ever work. In fact, belittling them seems like the small man tactic in comparison with a simple affinity for tribal history (real or otherwise).

I think we can belittle rioting. If it's directed into other outlets (sports is a great outlet) that's fine but violence is worthy of belittling imho.

Rioting wasn't the core context of the comment nor my response. Here's the relevant comment:

"It is people who feel inferior looking to attach themselves to something they perceive as great. It is very difficult for many people to find meaning in their lives, so they fall into the excessive fandom / tribalistic / nationalistic / etc mentality when they do not manage to find meaning and satisfaction elsewhere."

Calling a comment on HN a "tactic" in regard to political discourse in southeast Europe seems a bit of a stretch.

>From an outside perspective the extreme nationalism over "what is Macedonia" just gets weird. As in riots over a name change;

Name changes, in countries that have witnessed recent 2-3 centuries history from within "hot zones", are not just some insignificant detail, they are often driven by and soon enough accompanied with territorial and other claims.

But even the part about not wanting some other to claim your legaly itself is not that weird. It's cultural appropriation at a national level.

> From an outside perspective the extreme nationalism over "what is Macedonia" just gets weird.

Outside perspective that's a silly thing to fight over and "why don't you kids just get along" is not uncommon. But to those involved it's matter of identify, history, etc. It's a complicated thing. It depends how it's presented I guess, when it's comes with a patronizing voice, it's different than from someone from withing who wants to normalize things or reach out to the other side.

Claiming national history is about the most common thing in the world for a nation to do. It's far from weird, rioting and unusual dismissal tactics aside.

The same can be said of Israel and Palestine. The tribalism that existed there in ancient times has absolutely no bearing on the tribalism that exists there today. Yet, for some odd reason outsiders attach a wildly different bias to that issue compared to Greece and Macedonia.

Current conflict has nothing to do with ancient tribalism but everything to do with real violence and hatred that's been commonplace in the region in the last few centuries.

It seems to have a lot of bearing.

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