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Submitted 1 week ago by DandomRude@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Patriotism and nationalism are not equivalent.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I still think they have the same effect.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
They really don’t.
Nationalism is much more jingoistic and dogmatic - unflinching and unquestioning loyalty to a flag (or regime).
Patriotism is more along the lines of appreciating the positive aspects of one’s country, wanting to make the good parts materially better, and wanting to make the bad parts materially less bad. One can, for example, be a patriot, and simultaneously hate what one’s country is doing.
kindred@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Loving-kindness meditation is a practice that encourages you to extend compassion to yourself and then train it like a muscle to be extended further and further out.
Patriotism is love at the national level, but it doesn’t ask you to stop at the border (that’s nationalism).
People should be encouraged to love at the level they can sustain: self > friends & family > community > region > country (patriotism is here) > neighboring countries, etc > world.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If patriotism were practiced in this way, it would be desirable, but that is not the case. The current US administration’s portrayal of its criminal actions as patriotic duty should be example enough. This obviously has nothing to do with what you are saying. And yet, it is the reality.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Borders are lies to get us to play as chess pieces in the boardgame of the rich and powerful of the world.
We have more in common with the average people around the world than we do with our own leaders.
Onyxonblack@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I believe both )patriotic and Nationalism are bad. They are Tribalistic. Group mentality. Social cohesion.
However, I’m a Misanthropic Anti-Natalist and I desire for all humanity to go extinct. I would be full-on Traitor to the Human Species. If I could uplift some of the animal kingdom even they would howl for the blood of Humanity. Fucking nightmare creatures is what humans are. I would release the bioweapons to wipe every last pathetic human from this existence. Then the Earth would sigh in relief.
termaxima@slrpnk.net 6 days ago
To paraphrase the Dao De Jing : “Only when the nation is in peril, do nationalists begin to exist”
A healthy nation needs not be defended so.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Yes and no
It depends on how it is done
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 week ago
These are not the same thing. At least in America, these terms are only superficially similar in the sense that they are “people who say they love their country”.
When someone points out a country’s shortcomings and how it could be fixed, a patriot listens and makes plans, while a nationalist denies those shortcomings exist or blames them on external factors.
When someone says we should learn from our history and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, a patriot pulls out the history books, while a nationalist instead goes through them with a black highlighter.
When someone burns the country’s flag as a protest, a patriot asks why, while a nationalist will say they should be thrown in prison.
When abuses of power happen by the police or government agents, a patriot will demand an investigation and accountability, while a nationalist will say that actually, they deserved it.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Tbh, I have to disagree here.
Even in its best form, patriotism is about being proud of things you did nothing to contribute to and about tribalism and exclusion of others (namely people from places where you don’t live).
In my city we have great public transport, great public healthcare, strong worker protection laws, a large public housing sector that keeps rents low, good free education, pretty old buildings, lots of nice parks and many other great things that I like.
I did nothing to contribute to these things except of voting every few years. It’s not my achievement that these things exist, so pride would be misplaced.
I also know that all it takes for these things to vanish is the wrong people getting elected once or twice, and if that were to happen, the city could quickly be turned from a great place to live to a terrible place. It has happened before, specifically between 1933 and 1945, but also from 1809 to 1848 and 1914 to 1923.
Being patriotic would elevating my city and/or country to something more than it is: from a place to live to a place to worship or something like that, and it would mean I would have to support things that cannot be reasonably supported.
It’s totally ok to like the good things you have. It’s also totally ok to get behind good causes and further them. But it’s weird to “love” a place and bind yourself to it even if it goes bad.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Thank you for this comment. I completely agree with you: I think all it takes is people who act according to their conscience—that results in a community worth living in. That’s all it takes.
pastaq@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think you’re more of a patriot than you realize. A patriot loves their country for what it does and criticizes it when it does things they don’t like, while a nationalist loves their country regardless of what it does and criticizes those who want to change it.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 week ago
My argument is that terminology is irrelevant; what matters is how both concepts are used in practice: both are employed and explicitly emphasized to persuade people to serve a centralized power, usually against their own interests. This was the case in the Third Reich and is also the case in the US today (and in many other countries as well).
What I’m getting at: Theoretical distinctions are only relevant in theory, but not when you look at practice – and there it makes no difference whether someone calls themselves a nationalist or a patriot if both can be used to suppress dissenters by force.
It would be nice if people who call themselves patriots were good people, but history teaches us that they are usually not.
Triumph@fedia.io 1 week ago
Of course nationalists are going to drape themselves with the term "patriot". You're right that one should observe attentively when someone uses that word. My notions of nationalism vs patriotism align with @NateNate60. Just because someone uses a term in a way I disagree with doesn't make the concept that that term represents to me invalid.