This is my position on the Olympics and basically all national pride. It has nothing to do with anything, there is nothing to be proud of.
No one cares when I think it, it's nice to see others say it.
Well, this is obviously wrong.
Birth is not just a random momentary thing. It involves your parents. And they already had a nationality too. You couldn't have been born by any two random other people and still be the same person (DNA, childhood raising, education, food, native language, et al).
Second, you is not your birth only. It's also your upbringing, the culture you grew up in, the state/legal/etc environment you were raise, the language you spoke, the cuisine you were raised with, heck, even the national TV channels you were watching while growing up.
Would anybody dare to say the same thing to a black person? Nah, your culture and stuff is nothing, you could just as well be white? He'd be totally right to tell you to fuck off, for he has lived his culture (including bad treatment by white folks) all his life -- he knows that he being black wasn't just some "accident of birth", but an identity. Even a kid grewing up in Brooklyn by European Jews owes a lot to both Brooklyn and to him descending from European Jews (just ask Woody Allen).
It's also a potentially harmful way to see things. It's basically just an excuse to feel independent and non-connected and owning solidarity to anyone. Home country in danger? "Fuck it, I'll just flee. After all, it's only me, me, me that matters".
(You can feel solidarity for other nationalities and countries while also feeling pride and solidarity for your own people. Feeling solidarity for other people when you don't even care about your own is a little more difficult, despite those people paying lip service to "we're all one").
The world is an awfully large place, but its cultures are more widely distributed than ever before. Therefore a citizen has much better opportunity to form a morality or philosophy that is independent of the place they live. That is the sentiment, free and able to join your other points of cultural context.
Well, despite how obvious it is to you, you totally failed to convince me.
Home country in danger? "Fuck it, I'll just flee. After all, it's only me, me, me that matters"
Yes, and? Nationalism is the problem, not the solution. Oh, I understand the reasons articulated by the evolutionary psychologists for why humans are cliquish and tribal, and that all makes perfect sense. But we have the capacity for logic and higher order reasoning and we can transcend primal instincts like that if we want. And I think we should.
I agree, and argue this all the time.
Yes, I understand that nationality does affect me. Yes, I understand that human instinct is to "be social". But is that reason to spit in the face of a rational argument against a social problem?
This is particularly important. In a growing culture of "independent connectedness" it is so very easy to forget both the historical importance of a community on the individual, as well as reduce the individual's compulsion to benevolence toward members of that society.
Our communities are in part a reflection of our national consciousness, and we'd do well to remember that we are a part of those communities.
Is your nationality meaningless? Certainly not, for reasons as coldtea has pointed out above. Though a person's birth could have happened anywhere (assuming, for a moment, that the parents had the mobility to settle anywhere they chose), the fact is that it did not happen anywhere. It happened where it happened. While I have much empathy for those who would deny nationalism in any way, shape, and form, it really cannot be overlooked so simply. As much as I try to be this objective, unbiased, rational being, I realize that my birthplace and culture has certainly affected me whether I'd like to admit it or not.
On the other hand, rabid nationalism remains meaningless to me. I see no reason to war against others in the name of my country, and I see no reason to prefer those with nationalities in-line with mine to others. If an Indian Nobel prize winner decides to turn his back on those parasitic "countrymen" who attempt to latch themselves onto him and bask in his reflected glory for no reason other than "you're Indian, I'm Indian", I support him all the way.
What's wrong with that mindset? The way I see it, a rational actor would be inclined to think like that. I am an expat living halfway around the world and I have virtually zero sense of national identity. I am loyal to whatever place is aligned with my personal interests the most. When the place where I live stops serving my interests as an individual, I will go elsewhere. I give back to the community by working here, paying taxes and being a productive member of the society. Is there something wrong or dishonorable with that approach? Why shouldn't we be allowed to dynamically choose and reevaluate where we want to live throughout our lifetime?
The moment you ask me to die for you simply because we are from the same town/city/country, you are crossing into irrational territory and losing me right there and then. The only thing worth dying for is a good cause (so you'd better have one ready), and most of the time, wars started by nation-states are rooted in anything but good causes.
Convince me I'm wrong.
And I really don't mean to come off as a pothead going "It's all a giant conspiracy man!"...
Nationalism needs to go. There is absolutely nothing honorable in it. It just creates an artificial divide between the peoples of this planet. It all stems from a time when tribalism was needed to survive, and as it happens, evolution optimizes for local problems on the evolutionary curve and some of these features never go away.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we shouldn't cherish our cultural differences. On the contrary, I believe diversity is a wonderful thing and I find it fascinating that nearly every group of people out there has devised their own ways of communication, worship etc. Just don't let that devolve into "we are better than them", as it usually happens.
Did I ever say that? If I did, please point out where.
Absence of one type of divide doesn't imply that there wouldn't be others. But the less the better.
Why do Indians and other people from the subcontinent thrive more often in America than in their home countries? Because nationality does matter. Because while you can hold whatever beliefs and attitudes you want, your personal success and ability to achieve depends on the prevailing culture. The culture of your school work place, teachers, friends, potential employees, government. And American culture and institutions are conducive to success in a way success in ways Indian culture and institutions aren't. And that's something to be proud of. That's not something that arises passively. That's some thing we work together to build and nurture. That's something people fought for. The people who struggled to fight racism and sexism or corruption or lack of education, or the numerous other scourges still deeply ingrained in India, contributed something lasting to our culture, something that continues to accrue benefits to people who live here and adopt our ways.
However, for most people national pride is something that manifests as "we are better than them" and allows them to engage in all kinds of atrocities against other people because "they're outsiders/they're not us". It's very easy to justify all kinds of things when you adopt "us vs them" mentality.
Gotta be careful. Since most people can't be counted on to be well behaved and not let their pride devolve into justifications for colonization/genocide/ethnic violence, it's best to keep those feelings down to a minimum.
So there is still plenty of difference between peoples of the world. Its silly to ignore this.
Culture in itself is an important difference that makes people a lot more interesting to each other. But the examples given are not the same kind of difference: Olympic swimmers aren't expressing their culture. They're all, by rule, doing exactly the same thing. That the one from your nation does it the best says nothing about your culture, and there's no rational reason that swimmer or you should feel some sort of pride about that.
No, it's silly to argue that they are. You've exclusively mentioned virtues that are as common to every culture as they are to every grouping of humans that hasn't been designed intentionally to exclude them.
Culture largely consists of meals, hairstyles and clothing, dancing and mating habits, religion and racism, architecture, crafts, holidays, and nostalgia over mass media touchstones or memories of common suffering due to weather, famine, dictatorship, and war.
When people speak about culture writ large rather than a specific subset, it's usually when they're accusing foreigners or immigrants of lacking "dedication, concentration, work ethic, attitude, [and] family support" or explaining why the citizens of one's own country haven't achieved the "dedication, concentration, work ethic, attitude, [and] family support" of some country with more civil rights, and therefore aren't ready for more civil rights.
It seems groundless and silly, rather than offensive. Examples of cultures that lack family support, a work ethic, concentration, or dedication would make your case.
In fact you have to be blind to not see all of this. Blinded by some touchy-feely wish-fulfillment dream that somehow we'd all get along if we just quit {whatever implausible scenario you want}. I suspect at root its the feeling that we'd all get along if we were all just like me.
But we're not all just like, well, anybody. We're terribly different. Get over it, deal with it, and learn to get along anyway. That's the answer, not blinding ourselves to the astonish variety of ways human societies work (or don't work).
Some people did. As an example, my grandfather had to fight for the right to live according to his culture, because our country was invaded. Once you fought for your freedom, you begin to feel rather strongly about "nationality", defined as belonging to a group of people that share your cultural beliefs. And yes, you could say he "earned" his nationality. He did not fight in a a war because somebody enticed him to do so: he fought to defend his freedom, his family, and his way of life.
Don't oversimplify those things.
No thanks. Nationality is whose warlords turf you are born on. The second we get over this concept, the world will be a better place.
Thus paving the way for our multinational corporate overlords to consolidate control. Personally I am very scared for the type of global corruption that will be possible without national boundaries.
Your reasoning makes me think of the prisoner's dilemma. Sure, if everyone agreed to just abandon the concepts of cultural identity (leading to nationality) and live in peace, the world would be a better place. But for the moment, I'm afraid that "world peace" is something that only Miss World candidates speak of regularly.
No, but we all contribute to our nation (taxes, labor, voting) so when our nation achieves something great, we share a small part of that success.
Think of a soccer team. Everybody on the team celebrates and feels proud when #23 scores a goal, even though they didn't score the goal themselves. They share in #23's success.
A nationality is a collective endeavour -- it's the people of a country moving the country forward together (each according to his ideas of course). Even by paying taxes and cleaning some beach of garbage, or building a business in your country, you're DOING something.
And people do much more than that, from political action to take down a dictatorship to fighting to keep the nazis out, to tons of other things.
Plus, you don't have to "earn" something to feel pride about it. It just means you love it, and you want the best for it. Do people feel pride about their brothers and sisters? I know I do.
The closest thing we have to a guarantee for human rights is the ability to hold leaders accountable for them, and throw them out on a regular schedule.
I love my family and country because they are mine, they helped make me, and my memories are with them. Which helps me understand why Brits and Egyptians and Chinese, etc, love theirs.
I think good patriotism makes us sympathetic to outsiders rather than the opposite.
I've see what other people have to work with, and there have been many exceptions amongst my own family and friends, but as individuals, they are simply better than most other people.
I couldn't care less about blood or soil.
"Objective" and "parenting". That's cute.
And if she did neither she -deserves- no love
Keyword being deserves, of course you can love a bad mother
I don't see why different rules should apply to a mother who gave birth compared to one who adopted
The whole notion of "my country" is really interesting... If you were swiss, but born and raised in India, does India become "your country" or not?
The media in Subcontinent area feeds loads of BS about nationalism to the point that you start to believe it and start to thing it's true. Even the Indian national anthem's first verse is India is better than the whole world. Perhaps upon leaving India people realize common threads of humanity that bind communities together.
With the advent of the internet hopefully more people are learning this without having to leave a country as people work in multi national teams remotely. The people I interact with are very every day are in India, UK, Bosnia etc. We work on the same thing together. There are accents and cultural differences, but a lot of what we assume about people we haven't met dissolve in the face of realities which challenge your biased views.
The internet in some way has helped dilute the power of national boundaries. You find clusters like HN where people of all background come together and interacts based on commonalities that transcend mere physical attributes of our existence. While I agree that the physical attributes are still important, nationalism is not a physical attribute, it one imposed by some a-hole who wanted to draw lines and have power.
Love your mother, your family and the hospital that you were born in. (If you were born in a barn, said love should go to barn). Destroy those to dare assert superiority over those who were born in your particular hospital/field/barn etc. If that sounds ridiculous, please thing about how some other arbitrary inanimate object in place of hospital/field/barn makes more sense.
If you were born in England, and raised in India, you do have have dual allegiances, but probably more to India.
No, your family usually cares about and for you, unlike the hospital you were born in, which you cannot rely on for any favor.
About the country issue, it is simply a manner for many people to identify others on many traits using common associations (e.g Indians are poor, Eastern Asians are hard-workers, Swiss are meticulous), that sometimes relate to accurate correlations. And it's one of the few ways, other than age and salary, to do this kind of association in a neutral and non-controversial way.
I don't disagree but I think pageantry and even national or ethnic pride have a place. I like St. Paddy's day, Robbie Burns parties, cheering for my local sports teams, putting up douchey flags on my car when my team wins a game at the World Cup, etc.
At the end of the day, nothing really matters anyway.
If your country is decent and just, addresses the needs of the poor and sick, welcomes people of different cultures, etc., and especially if you play an active role in improving your government, there's reason to be proud.
If you vote "no taxes," don't volunteer, don't donate, and wave a flag, then you suck.
Seriously, if there's one thing I've learned from watching the Olympics, it's that many of the successful ones are enabled by their ability to move away from their place of birth, well, that and good genetics.
[1] http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat
Nobel prizes and Olympic medals on the other hand are some combination of nurture versus nature, and while the “We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth.” quote is factually true, people making that statement should (in theory) have a long list of people who helped them on their way to achieving that dream. Nations which encourage certain behaviors can have an impact.
Indeed it was chosen by Nobel laureate who made the quote.
But you're right, unless you happen to be born gifted or are exceptionally driven (to the point where you'd migrate illegally for instance), you're stuck.
I guess some people are happy to accept that shame if it means they can share in the pride too. But I suspect most people who feel proud of their country would wash their hands of the shame by saying the crimes were nothing to do with them. Fairweather collectivists!
Identity is too complex a phenomenon to boil it down to such simplistic notions as nationality or political party. Nationalism cannot express a 'whole' identity, and therefore always forces people to ascribe to philosophies which left to their own devices they would not have supported. And that is how we get wars. Thz nation-state is the modern version of the regional tribe, and tribal culture is what causes wars. In that sense, there is no instrument more damaging to human rights than the nation state.