An Important Distinction
An Important Distinction
An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
15 comments
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Patriotism and Nationalism are basically the same thing. The distinction is nonsensical, especially in this context.
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good ol' Lemmy's lack of nuance.
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You'll have to explain, since in the comic the main premise of both Nationalism and Patriotism is that "this house is mine ergo it is the best".
(Also historically the distinction would be that Nationalism is about establishing an ethno-state, while Patriotism is the basically-unconditional loving of your state, be it ethno or otherwise.)
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What a dumbass take.
The difference is much simpler. Patriotism for internal conflicts, nationalism for external conflicts. Both for manufactured Boogeymen fueled by malicious propaganda.
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imo, actual patriotism would be more like "I want to make my house as good as I can."
You don't have to think your country is the best to be patriotic with respect to that country.
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Nah, it's very subjective. Idealistically patriotism is more like "I want to make the common house everyone on the street lives in more pleasant to live in for everyone."
Realistically it's more like "I want to make my house how I think it should be better. Why doesn't everyone else do the same?"
Each individual has their own idea about what's the patriotic thing to do, even if that ends up to be the wrong thing in someone else's view. That's why I say it's about internal conflicts. Your patriotism and your neighbor's can come at odds with each other in various points. Neither of you might be wrong, but you'll still have to pick something that goes against those beliefs eventually. Better for you, worse for someone else, but pat oneself on the back with the excuse "the good of the many".
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Talk about dumbass takes..
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I did talk. You didn't. This comment of yours.... Zero substance. Not even dumb, just empty.
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Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
State-level patriotism also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
And there is no valid reason to have some special relation to your country. It is natural to feel ties with the place you were born or the place you spent a lot of time in, this is human psychology, but your country is nothing but a piece of land that was marked by somebody as belonging to some virtual entity.
We should ditch state-level patriotism as a concept and treat local-level patriotism as a natural bias. We should strive to help people of all places and origins, and come together as one.
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Instead of local-level should it not be headed towards planet-level?
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There’s no “special” reason to view the adults you grew up with as better or worse caretakers. Statistically, it’s likely they’re equivalent to many others.
Still, this over application of logic refuses to let us be enthusiastic about anything unless there’s a scientifically documented reason towards it. It’s nice to have reasons to adore something, even if that thing is a country - but the comic is making the point that you should still want to find flaws in and improve that thing.
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How many languages outside of English even have a word for patriotism?
15 comments