What is your opinion on national pride / patriotism?
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Some of my life-achievements involved contributing to my nation.
Good for you man, but in this case I guess that you're proud of yourself and in the achievements that helped the people around you.
You don't have "second hand pride with extra narrative on top" from people that died long before you were born -
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
It may a 200 year old quote, but the only thing that has changed is that we have since found even worse things to be proud of.
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Patriotism is the little sibling of nationalism, and the boundaries are fluid.
I will never understand why people are proud of other people's accomplishments and make them their own. Or is it because people were shat on somewhere else in the world than everyone else?
Makes absolutely no sense.Have you ever played a team sport?
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Have you ever played a team sport?
I have. And yet I never had the feeling that my club's achievements were mine, unless I had contributed to them. And even then, I was just proud to have been part of the team with which I achieved the performance. I can differentiate very well.
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It's fine. Community is natural.
The problem comes when it stops being about what you love and starts being about what you hate.
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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.
Arthur Schopenhauer
It may a 200 year old quote, but the only thing that has changed is that we have since found even worse things to be proud of.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I am proud of my nation and its progressive, socialist nature, yet I am fully, and painfully so, aware of it’s shortcomings and problems.
But despite the problems, it’s extremely hard for me not to feel pride for the way we handle things within and without, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. We’ve been consistently at the top of the most socially progressive charts of the world, having also been denoted the worlds happiest country for over 5 years in row, and so on.
I do have my own prides, things I’m not ashamed to claim being very good at, and I do have a lot of very loud criticism against my nation too. But I remain overall proud just because we dare to be, against most odds, progressive and socialist.
I would defend my country, even picking up arms, because the chances are, the invader will simply be worse. Lead to worse overall situation here. Anyone surpassing us on either social or progressive counts, would be almost certainly not invading anyone, let alone us.
Maybe I am the fool the quote talks about, the good-at-nothing simpleton falling back to national pride for lack of any of my own. But I do not feel like one and I certainly have a lot more, explicitly outside the concept of a nation and this specific nation too, prides and accomplishments to be proud of.
I don’t think national pride is all that bad. I think it can be reasonable if the nation is best at its class on things most important and dear to you. Of course most national pride around the world is rooted on shitty stuff, and most nationally pride people usually being neo-nazi assholes, yet I still remain steadfast in my opinion that it need not be so.
It can be fine. I am sure of that.
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Only the gullible are proud of their country. The real patriots are critical of the mistakes of the country.
One can be proud despite its shortcomings. Nothing is perfect in this world. But there are things worth being proud of, despite understanding its flaws and being consistently critical of it as a whole.
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I have. And yet I never had the feeling that my club's achievements were mine, unless I had contributed to them. And even then, I was just proud to have been part of the team with which I achieved the performance. I can differentiate very well.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I think most people who are sensible but claim pride for some collective achievement or team or whatever, do so outwardly mostly because it’d be tiring to always include a philosophy lecture about distinction and differentiating between one’s own and others’ achievements. When we think about it actively, we can realize the faults and the details and could put them in words, but who the fuck has the patience to go in depth about all that each time they state they are proud of their team, their friends, etc.?
It’s just easier to say I’m proud of team xyz and hope the other party has the mental facilities to understand that it’s not a simple matter when you break it to pieces and start philosophing about it, but it’s just convenient and more prudent not to go into details or full analysis mode on all that every time…
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One can be proud despite its shortcomings. Nothing is perfect in this world. But there are things worth being proud of, despite understanding its flaws and being consistently critical of it as a whole.
I agree with you on this but with some nuance. This thinking is correct and should be used on individual level. However, time has shown us that most humans are stupid and will resort to herd mentality. So, the pride quickly turns into nationalism.
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I have. And yet I never had the feeling that my club's achievements were mine, unless I had contributed to them. And even then, I was just proud to have been part of the team with which I achieved the performance. I can differentiate very well.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]And even then, I was just proud to have been part of the team with which I achieved the performance.
Isn't that what the patriotic people experience as well?
They vote, they pay taxes, they're sometimes politically active. From their point of view, they've contributed to the success of their country, and they're proud of it?
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It'll fuck your country up real bad.
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One can be proud despite its shortcomings. Nothing is perfect in this world. But there are things worth being proud of, despite understanding its flaws and being consistently critical of it as a whole.
What does it even mean in this context? Pride? You didn't do it, you were just born there and it was already done. I feel people mistake "pleased" or "happy" with "proud".
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Never seen it not be an unconvincing cover for racism during my lifetime.
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Good for you man, but in this case I guess that you're proud of yourself and in the achievements that helped the people around you.
You don't have "second hand pride with extra narrative on top" from people that died long before you were bornYou don’t have “second hand pride with extra narrative on top” from people that died long before you were born
The individualists in this thread are saying:
- Your personal conduct didn't form your nation
- And personal conduct is the only valid source of pride
- Therefore you can't be proud of your nation
And I don't agree with the 2nd premise at all. People are social beings and there's lots of examples of collective pride.
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What does it even mean in this context? Pride? You didn't do it, you were just born there and it was already done. I feel people mistake "pleased" or "happy" with "proud".
Believe it or not, I’ve been a part of it since I was born. I didn’t just come to be in a vacuum. I’ve influenced the society as much as anyone, we work together to make it better, we are a team, we protest. We sign petitions. We vote. We talk and talk and talk and have kids that will, too, become a part of what we’ve worked hard for and against and with.
Being proud of the team, of yourself, or the fact that you with your team are actively succeeding in not becoming a fascist shithole like the US or Russia for example. It’s not nothing. It’s worth being proud of. And takes effort, work, input every single day of every single month of every single year.
Yeah. I’m proud of myself and everyone around me. But I’m also proud of what we’ve worked together to build. This country did not stay this way by itself. It’d be ruined by capitalism and fascism the second we, the people of this country, stopped fighting against it and making this nation something to feel proud belonging to.
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You don’t have “second hand pride with extra narrative on top” from people that died long before you were born
The individualists in this thread are saying:
- Your personal conduct didn't form your nation
- And personal conduct is the only valid source of pride
- Therefore you can't be proud of your nation
And I don't agree with the 2nd premise at all. People are social beings and there's lots of examples of collective pride.
Collective pride is real and there are a lot examples of it, but it works with small sized groups and when it does it feels great. Because of course we're a social species, but our monkey brain is built around tribes and doesn't conceive whole nations.
And that's why, for example, when I see people cheering for an athlete just because all their parents happened to fuck within the same imaginary lines, I find it really silly.But I know that's me, I have no problems with people who have a healthy national pride. I'm just saying I don't and never had.
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Nationalism (and by extension patriotism) was an amazing tool to bring people together in a nation, when coming from a past of small kingdoms, city states and similar smaller communities.
Now it's done it's job and it's time we get past that.
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I am proud of my nation and its progressive, socialist nature, yet I am fully, and painfully so, aware of it’s shortcomings and problems.
But despite the problems, it’s extremely hard for me not to feel pride for the way we handle things within and without, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. We’ve been consistently at the top of the most socially progressive charts of the world, having also been denoted the worlds happiest country for over 5 years in row, and so on.
I do have my own prides, things I’m not ashamed to claim being very good at, and I do have a lot of very loud criticism against my nation too. But I remain overall proud just because we dare to be, against most odds, progressive and socialist.
I would defend my country, even picking up arms, because the chances are, the invader will simply be worse. Lead to worse overall situation here. Anyone surpassing us on either social or progressive counts, would be almost certainly not invading anyone, let alone us.
Maybe I am the fool the quote talks about, the good-at-nothing simpleton falling back to national pride for lack of any of my own. But I do not feel like one and I certainly have a lot more, explicitly outside the concept of a nation and this specific nation too, prides and accomplishments to be proud of.
I don’t think national pride is all that bad. I think it can be reasonable if the nation is best at its class on things most important and dear to you. Of course most national pride around the world is rooted on shitty stuff, and most nationally pride people usually being neo-nazi assholes, yet I still remain steadfast in my opinion that it need not be so.
It can be fine. I am sure of that.
The difference between you and the described "fool" is, that you are not inherently proud of your nation, but more like what you as a nation have accomplished (at least that's what I interpreted from your words). The patriotic fool on the other hand is proud of much more stupid things he had nothing to do with. He takes pride in his language, the culture, his own town simply because he was born into it. The fool wants to stop all influences from outside, that may change the thing he takes pride in. He sees the world as a constant static structure that evolved and that should not be changed, ignoring that constant change just made things like culture the way they are.
You on the other hand said, that you take pride for your nation having a high standard of living, a good social system and such stuff. All of these have been earned through constant fight and you can be proud of winning this fight. You are also able to see flaws in the current system and want stuff to change.
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It ain't worth a damn to me. Maybe if your country doesn't suck lol. There truly are things about my country I love. In some ways, we're the best in the world. An American can be white, black, asian, hispanic, arab or anything else really. It's a very beautiful thing to me. I find it deeply depressing that those in power want to strip this country of what makes it great. Also having no social safety net is not acceptable obviously. There's far more I can shit on this country of mine for than I can praise it for right now. I sincearly hope that changes. I'd like to be proud to be American. I've always wanted that. Sadly, it's never been a reality for me and millions of other Americans.
