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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.
I’d prefer countries, especially the US, not fuck with other countries, regardless of whether their goal is “improving” them or not.
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.
I truly believe that when we accomplish the goal, people's mental model of just about anything "different" or "strange" is also implied to have changed, for the better.
Around that time, we will be able to evolve and leave most of our self-destructive mental models behind.