Via SMBC
patriotism is nothing but loyalty to real estate. - dr. gregory house.
seriously, though. it’s high time we thought of ourselves as co-passengers on a single planet-sized ship rather than attributing memberships to everyone on the basis of arbitrarily drawn lines on a map.
Patriotism is the belief that together we can make this place really lasting and good.
Nationalism is the belief that no place could compare to your nation and every other nation needs to show fealty.
I’m ok with patriotism.
I’m not ok with nationalism.
Patriotism is the belief that together we can make this place really lasting and good.
the problem is with the definition of “this place”. a patriot’s vision of “this place” is restricted by borders drawn by politicians.
no sane person should ever “be ok” with that extent of tunnel vision. “this place” should extend to the world we all share.
While I do hope that eventually we get to one humanity-sized tribe, until then humans still seem to want smaller tribes. While trying to convince people to see all humans as part of the same tribe, we can simultaneously try and improve the smaller arbitrary tribes we were given by chance.
the minute we think of ourselves as being part of a tribe – of being a subgroup – we lose sight of the fact that we are all together with each other on this third rock from the sun.
we know of no other life as yet. the only life we have amongst ourselves and around us on the crust of this planet is therefore doubly sacred.
why would we want to dilute something so wonderful by etching a border between ourselves and creating a “you” versus a “me”? why would we even want to maintain that division even if it were ostensibly given to us “by chance”?
(separately, it would be a travesty to say that the so-called “tribes” inhabiting india and pakistan, south korea and north korea, czechia and slovakia, all the present-day components of the former yugoslavia, northern ireland and the republic of ireland, and all other such sets of people divided by manmade norms were “given to us by chance”.)
separately, it would be a travesty to say that the so-called “tribes” […] were “given to us by chance”
What I meant by that is that you don’t decide where you’re born or who your parents are. That is “by chance” from the point of view of the individual.
Humans are a tribal species. Whether we’re talking culture, ethnicity, nationality or any other method of defining who is inside or outside the group, the fact is we have an ingrained tendency to separate “us” from “them”.
Modern psychology says that the process of becoming more and more inclusive and tolerant is the process of expanding your mental map of who your “tribe” is.
This means that to truly accomplish our goal here (you and I seem to 100% agree on that goal), we need to expand people’s mental model of their tribe to encompass all people.
Plot twist: the comic has a single MC. He wears a red shirt, then he gets his morning coffee, then he wears a yellow shirt.
I’m being cheeky to highlight that the comic is artificially creating a qualitative distinction where there’s none. Patriotism is at most nationalism lite; if not just an euphemism for the later.
It does so through two (IMO rather disingenuous) resources:
- A bad analogy between house and country. It’s bad because it grossly disregards what matters the most in a country (its population).
- By making the nationalist sound angry so the patriot looks nicer in comparison. Not too unlike this:
What I’m going to say below is simply showing the above.
[P] I’m gonna work on my house because it’s the best house.
Put people into the equation there. Both P and N will happily ignore what happens with people who live in other houses, for the sake of people living in their own. Except that they are not related to most people in their respective houses (remember, metaphors break).
Your neighbour is starving? “Sorry, as a patriot I need to focus only on people living in my house. One of them is peckish. They take priority.”
[N] My house is the best house because it’s my house!
People claiming to be “nationalists” typically defend the superiority of their “house” with shit like: it’s the oldest house in the bloc, someone who lived in that house did something great, the garden has 0.19% less weed etc. Pretty much the same as the “patriot”.
[P] Hi, neighbour! Could I see your house? I’m trying to improve my house.
More like “hi neighbour! I need some quality dirt for my house. I’ll try to convince you that it’s in the best of the interests of everyone living in your house if you had sand instead, so you can give me the dirt. And if you don’t agree I’m going to convince every neighbour in the bloc to throw their rubbish on your garden. Do we have a deal, or do we have a deal?”
[N] Gimme your house […]
P would instead spam propaganda until you’re convinced that you’re better off living of favour in someone else’s house.
[P] Come into my house… / [N] Stay out of my house…
Okay, now the comic is simply making distinctions up of thin air, given that both are typically OK with tourism but heavily suspicious of immigrants.
[N] Now I am patriotism
Ouroboros, please. You were patriotism since the start.
I’d say “a plague in both houses”, but I can only see one house there.
The way I see it, patriotism is a gateway-philosophy to nationalism. At best I think it is unproductive and at worst it facilitates nationalism. In my native language there is no distinction between the concepts and last time it discussed in a non-negative light was during the Nazi occupation.
a bit overwrought
I disagree to a point (only with the first panel): I don’t think patriotism requires that one think their country is the best (and thinking that your country is generally/objectively the best is a little sketch). Liking your country best is another story.
As a parallel, I like imperial units best. I find them more intuitive and I’m used to estimating them. I think metric units are more suited to scientific work and, if I really had to choose, I’d probably consider them the objectively better system. I think I’m the equivalent of patriotic about imperial units, whereas someone who thinks they’re inherently better would be nationalistic.
I too feel this way about imperial units.
I like to call them “freedom units”, because they remind me that I’m free to continue to make an objectively poor choice, each time I measure something.
