Would you describe yourself as patriotic?

[.Morticia.]

Seems to me that thinking your country is the best is a little like thinking your god is the best! Are you patriotic? If so how do you justify it?

Thinking your country is best is nationalism. Which is the evil.

And while countries are really just a modern invention that faciliate commerce, home and family and culture are not and there's nothing wrong with loving one's home.

[egbert]

As if freedom was a question of might as if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say all the time--"My country wrong or right"
I want to know what that's got to do With what it takes to find out what's true
With everyone from the President on down Trying to keep it from you
The thing I wonder about the Dads and Moms
Who send their sons to the Vietnams
Will they really think their way of life Has been protected as the next war comes?

[floppit]

I get fighting for or against ideas but it's hard to equate that with 'my country'. I have just about enough knowledge of history tpo know my own country has done numerous things i'd fight against and some i'd fight for but that seems to me the way it is globally.

That this country is 'mine' isn't something I chose or earned, I was just born here. The. Bad my country's done wasn't my doing, yet i've gained from much of it. The good my country's done is not my doing either.

I care enough to vote, speak out, largely obey the law - but love? I love ideas, people, some pretty places, some that seem to have all the above, fleetingly. I can equate that to many places and times but not one of either.

[rachelbean]

I am grateful to have been born in the country I was with the liberties afforded to me (especially as a woman), but I realize the things I appreciate about it are not exclusive to this country and I would have no problem giving up citizenship if I needed to in order to be with people I love

[Bella Fortuna]

I am grateful to have been born in the country I was with the liberties afforded to me (especially as a woman), but I realize the things I appreciate about it are not exclusive to this country and I would have no problem giving up citizenship if I needed to in order to be with people I love

My thoughts exactly... I'd do that in a heartbeat if circumstances permitted.

[charlou]

I get fighting for or against ideas but it's hard to equate that with 'my country'. I have just about enough knowledge of history tpo know my own country has done numerous things i'd fight against and some i'd fight for but that seems to me the way it is globally.

That this country is 'mine' isn't something I chose or earned, I was just born here. The. Bad my country's done wasn't my doing, yet i've gained from much of it. The good my country's done is not my doing either.

I care enough to vote, speak out, largely obey the law - but love? I love ideas, people, some pretty places, some that seem to have all the above, fleetingly. I can equate that to many places and times but not one of either.

Yes.


For me there's no sense of personal or cultural pride or entitlement connected with where I live, just appreciation for the things I and others enjoy, here and everywhere, and concern about things that could be better. I'm under no idyllic delusion about history, the present or the future. People and culture are intertwined, no matter where they are.

[Sisifo]

Sex, race, religion, nation, are just fictional tags used by the few to delude the many into the idea that there is such a thing as "they and us".

I have no hope for the human race as long as they exist. Any of them.

[charlou]

Sex, race, religion, nation, are just fictional tags used by the few to delude the many into the idea that there is such a thing as "they and us".

I have no hope for the human race as long as they exist. Any of them.

I think it's possible such divisiveness, being an encultured aspect of behaviour, can be modified over time with the appeal to and use of that one thing that seems to separate us from other animals: reason. Even so, the reality of circumstances are always going to be an imposition.




Speaking of appeal to reason ... what methods are best for reducing divisive notions and behaviours? Discussion and debate ... leading by example ... aversion/reward (carrot/stick) ... other? .... or a combination of any/all, depending on the context ... ?

[charlou]

Actually, is the aversion/reward method an appeal to reason? I don't think so.

[Sisifo]

Sex, race, religion, nation, are just fictional tags used by the few to delude the many into the idea that there is such a thing as "they and us".

I think it's possible such divisiveness, being an encultured aspect of behaviour, can be modified over time with the appeal to and use of that one thing that seems to separate us from other animals: reason. Even so, the reality of circumstances are always going to be an imposition.




Speaking of appeal to reason ... what methods are best for reducing divisive notions and behaviours? Discussion and debate ... leading by example ... aversion/reward (carrot/stick) ... other? .... or a combination of any/all, depending on the context ... ?

I had once the dream that reason could erase or at least blurr that divisiveness. When I started to join atheist communities was in hope of finding similar thinking groups and to add myself in a work to bring down any notion of "them and us". I was shocked to find as much, if not more, "them and us" in the atheist communities as in any other. No difference, whatsoever. I also found equal uncouthness about world's culture as anywhere else. An "A" in roman alphabet for an universal atheist symbol? Dawkinism is a joke.

Currently the only advances into world unification have come through economic systems and I think they are unsustainable without political unification, and cultural through Holywood and internet. I don't think that they are paths that are going to take us anywhere significant.

I only see a way in the utopia that nations surrender the sovereign rights to join something bigger. No ruling group is going to allow it. Not even let the idea spread. It seems to happen the opposite. Calling the neighbours "oppressors" seems to be a very successful political line. No. I don't believe that reason can unite us, even if it could be universalized.

So... Yeah. Waiting for a s. XXII version of Genghis Khan.

I applied, but got disctracted in the harem.

[Atheist-Lite]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQIZVO9k ... re=related[/youtube]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you're not patriotic, you don't like the place in you're in. Your choices at that point would be to move, to do something to make the place better, or to whinge a lot and do nothing. I wonder what most people chose...

[Geoff]

If you're not patriotic, you don't like the place in you're in. Your choices at that point would be to move, to do something to make the place better, or to whinge a lot and do nothing. I wonder what most people chose...

That doesn't follow. I like the place I'm in, even though it's pretty much a dump (although I'd prefer to be 300 miles South of here ). I'm [the equivalent of] patriotic about my home town to some extent, but not the country.

If rationalia was a country, though, then I might feel patriotism towards it!

[JimC]

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes( and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you're not patriotic, you don't like the place in you're in. Your choices at that point would be to move, to do something to make the place better, or to whinge a lot and do nothing. I wonder what most people chose...

That doesn't follow. I like the place I'm in, even though it's pretty much a dump (although I'd prefer to be 300 miles South of here ). I'm [the equivalent of] patriotic about my home town to some extent, but not the country.

If rationalia was a country, though, then I might feel patriotism towards it!

It follows. You have problems with your country. Which option do you chose?