What's the point of Patriotism?

AFTERTHOUGHT:

I have no problem with a loyal opposition who have the best interests of the country at heart.

But I judge as non-patriots those who delight in the failure of our elected leaders and who overtly or secretly want them to fail. These are the ones I wish would just go somewhere else.

Foxfyre
But is that all instances? There's no question that a very large contingent of people wished to see Clinton fail, and they worked quite diligently to that end.

But I judge as non-patriots those who delight in the failure of our elected leaders and who overtly or secretly want them to fail. These are the ones I wish would just go somewhere else.

fail in his duties.

Tell that to all the "official patriots" like Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, etc...

The key of course is whether the person believes in his words or whether he has been bought off or is trying to sell a book in which case he would be self serving and no patriot of any kind. We have opposing statements about that in one case and we do not yet know which way it will come down.

I think I've figured out that my first post was wrong. Scrat, you have changed my mind. I think that the point of patriotism is to divide us. And that's not a bad thing.

The fact is that most people feel patriotism, and that leads me to believe that we need it. At this point, the world hasn't evolved to the point where we don't need to divide ourselves (countries, religious beliefs, race, etc.).

In fact, it's probably one of the main reasons we've survived this long. I think America has probably done more to help make the world a better place than any other modern society in such a relatively short amount of time, and that is a good thing.

Freedom is a pretty f*cking cool idea.

I reserve the right to change my mind next week and start railing about patriotism being bullshit again.

Love of family and such is an survival mechanism just like patriotism is. Solidarity is a survival mechanism.

Patriotism springs from the same tribalism that does our alleatory familial bonds. Proximity and empathy forging solidarity are very basic survival mechanisms. Patriotism and familial bonds are similar in this respect even if the scope of both are very different.

I happen to think that they are very different in terms of need, and that civilization has evolved to a point where nationalism and patriotism is mainly useful only for economic warfare but Scrat's spot on to compare it to love for family.

It's comparable in both good and bad ways. Both are a form of solidarity that is a survival mechanism. Both are partially instinctual and mindless.

Both have needs rooted in collective survival.

Both share the root that is empathy.

I think that in modern society we are evolving past the need for patriotism (though I see familial bond as becoming more necessary) but the comparison is spot on.

It's not the same thing, but definitely related.

Quote:

Patriotism is bullshit. Why should anyone feel love or devotion to a country just because their parents happened to have f*cked there? I think patriotism is just another act of blind faith that is used by people in power to control the sheep-like masses.

Scrat, I wouldn't call that a "rational point of view". I would call it a rant.

Kicky, Is there ANYTHING other than yourself that you DO feel love and devotion towards?

Okay, I was going to argue the point that Scrat made, and it could be argued, but I'd rather just try to make my point about patriotism in a different way, to show what I mean.

By the way, that line about being patriotic just because your parents f*cked there was from a comedian named Bill Hicks that nobody on here has probably ever heard of, and when I was writing that original post, it came to me and I couldn't resist using it.

My point was that patriotism does not allow clarity of vision and objectivity, and because of that, it is not only unnecessary, it is a detriment, and not a benefit.

For example, when the U.S. was starting the war with Iraq, everything logical in me said that the reasons were a lie, and it was not the right thing to do. When they went in and started the war, I avoided all news about it for about a week, because I was so conflicted about it. I didn't want to hear it. Why was I conflicted? Because I did not want to believe that my country was doing something like this. Why did I not want to believe it? Because of patriotism. And patriotism is what allowed this war to happen. If the citizens of this country could have looked at the situation with an objective eye, maybe there would have been ten times the number of protesters at the time, and the outcry could have possibly even forced our government to find another way to approach the situation in Iraq.

That is how patriotism is bullshit.

kickycan wrote:

My point was that patriotism does not allow clarity of vision and objectivity, and because of that, it is not only unnecessary, it is a detriment, and not a benefit.

First, I love Bill Hicks.

Second, I have to go back to my analogy again, because I still think it works. Your argument--to me--amounts to suggesting that if a criminal were pointing a gun towards my father and a stranger standing beside my father, that my preference towards shielding my father from harm rather than a stranger is "not only unnecessary, it is a detriment, and not a benefit". My father is not a perfect man, but he deserves my fealty, perhaps slightly more than he has earned it. That doesn't mean I support him when he is wrong or turn a blind eye when he does something bad, but it means I support his successes and share his failures with the hope that they will be few and far between.

And yes, my feelings towards my country are very much like that.