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• DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  No, but give them as few opportunities as possible to justify their misdeeds. Patriotism is traditionally the favorite argument of unscrupulous oportunists: they invoke it because it appeals to people and offers them a way out, a way to legitimize morally reprehensible acts—in the sense that you can do whatever you want because it is in the service of the fatherland.

  How this works can currently be seen in Israel, for example: here, soldiers commit terrible atrocities and claim that human rights do not apply to enemies of Israel, enemies of their holy fatherland. So they act as ruthlessly as possible because it is supposedly patriotic.

  It is important to make it clear that people remain people, even if they have a different nationality. Emphasizing national pride and all that makes this more difficult, because if you always emphasize how proud you are of your country, you inherently emphasize at the same time that people of other nationalities do not belong. For reasonably rational people, it is of course perfectly obvious that this does not imply any judgment of people of other nationalities—on the contrary, many are rightly proud that their country is just and guarantees human rights. The problem, however, is that many people are anything but rational—and some of them are only looking for (spurious) arguments to use against others: patriotism is ideal for this purpose because it is an abstract concept - there is no universal definition of what it means.

  That’s why I believe we should emphasize patriotism as little as possible and instead stick to concrete issues—such as emphasizing a fair legal system and so on. This makes it less abstract and offers less potential for abuse.

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  • atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    If patriotism couldnt be used to spread propaganda, wouldnt people just find another word to use?

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    • DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      If people didn’t invoke patriotism so excessively, as they do, for example, in the US with flag pledges in schools, Stars and Stripes air shows at sporting events after the national anthem, that gets played nearly every time, flags everywhere from houses to tv shows, and much much more constant declarations of love for this proud nation, if all that would not happen every day, don’t you think it be way harder to spread propaganda on this basis?

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      • atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Not being able to use a word wouldnt stop all the other things mentioned

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