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Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:46 am Post subject: National pride.
Bit longwinded, this one, but I'll get there.
I've long considered nationalism a wicked thing. That one place is superior to another simply because I was born there seems to me transparently silly, and the converse, that another place is inferior because I wasn't born there, is dangerous because of the way humans treat what they consider inferior.
Through comics and the internet, I find myself in frequent conversation with people in other countries. My impression of the US is that patriotism is somewhat conditioned, by entertainment product and by political components like the oath of allegiance, while patriotism in Britain is mostly reserved for sport and the occasional petty war. We are affected by American entertainment, too, to the point of confusion: after 9/11, I heard one British person accuse another not in mourning of being "unpatriotic".
Yesterday on another forum I saw Britain described by an American as a nation of nihilistic whingers; a Portuguese agreed; and then a Briton chimed in, with a long whinge about a range of tabloid issues (tax, speed cameras, blah). Since then I've been fighting a guerilla action over there (because it's not true, it's not, it's not, so there).
So...
How do we all feel about our respective countries (I know we've got a few here), and, more challengingly, how do we see each other's?
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 637 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject: Re: National pride.
The UK has been slipping in the world due to a gap in barbecue sauce technology. We have already discovered the formula to synthetic haggis. Scotland will soon fall. German pork chops are the only thing preventing us from complete world cultural domination.
A chap on the radio made an interesting comment today to the effect that America needed her enemies as much as, if not more, than she needed her friends - that seeing herself as a superhero she needs a super villain (or two) to define herself by.
So... it's all Superman's fault. _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
Palmers, would your musings in any way be prompted by the outbreak of World Cup fever that seems to be sweeping the nation - as evidenced by the sudden preponderance of St George car flags?
My friend is convinced that they are a response to a governmental request for statistics on men with dicks that are smaller than 4 inches.
Me, I say three inches. _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
Actually, no, that footbally cup thing wasn't in my thoughts. Some people, though, have complained that it's not common practice in the UK to fly patriotic flags on public buildings as in the US. It might reveal something about Britain - or just about me - that I can't imagine why you'd want to.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
ps Isn't patriotism supposed to be the last refuge of scoundrels ... or am I thinking of the Dog and Duck in Hounslow? _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: National pride.
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing
And the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising
Their guns on fire as we sail into hell
I have no fear of death, it brings no sorrow
But how bitter will be this last farewell..."
palmers wrote:
while patriotism in Britain is mostly reserved for sport and the occasional petty war.
Speaking as a long time anglophile, I would think that Burton, Nelson, and Kipling would disagree with you on that.
But we're a long way past the eras of Burton, Nelson, and Kipling, sadly. Modern Britian, perhaps what you said is a truism for. A pity, that.
"Then, fretful, murmur not they gave
So great a charge to keep,
Nor dream that awestruck Time shall save
Their labour while we sleep.
Dear-bought and clear, a thousand year,
Our fathers' title runs.
Make we likewise their sacrifice,
Defrauding not our sons."
Heh. Your initial post wasn't long winded, not by my standards , but my reponse may be.
Ian Palmers wrote:
How do we all feel about our respective countries (I know we've got a few here)
Which one?
And no, that's not an idle or sarcastic question.
I was asked one time in a conversation on something similar "So, what do you consider yourself, then?"
I think my response somewhat boggled the other party, because she changed topics afterwards, and wandered off shortly after.
"I'm a Texican, a man of the Aniwunyiya, and an American."
I do not believe that there is anything that is "a wicked thing" about loving one's country, one's heritage, and one's people. A grevious insult in both T'salagi and in Navajo is to tell someone "You behave as one who has no Family". Wontolla, to borrow a phrase from Kipling: no kin, no ties, no place, and no attachment to anything beyond one's self. It's considered to be a cold and lifeless thing in a Nation and a People that values heritage, clan, and blood.
Unfortunately, it's a place I find myself in more and more as I grow older, so your question is something I've given more than a bit of thought to over time.
I love America. Deeply, unreservedly, and unabashedly. I both respect and revere the principles on which she was founded. Those principles have never to my knowledge been exceeded, much less matched, as a template for attempting to build a country's philosophy. I love her peoples - all of them - in their myriad customs, nationalities, languages and richness. I love her lands in all of their infinite varieties. And I would fight from that love, or die from it.
I do *not* mistake "The US Government" for "America". And that's a correlation that I believe all too many people make on both sides of this question. They're not the same. There is very little of "America" left in the United States these days, and I've been"priveledged" if that's the right word, to watch what was left of it die in my lifetime.
So... I'm a man without a country.
There's very little of the Aniwunyiya left in the modern T'salagi. We are no more that People who once stated without boasting that "when the Nations of the True People move, others move aside or die." There are little of our customs, language, heritage or soveriegnity left. We're something betwixt and between our Sequoyahs and our Tom Threepersons and Wilma Mankillers. And I am a throwback. ;]
So... I'm a man without a People, who misses a time and people he never knew.
There's very little left of Houston the Raven or David Crockett in Texas, as well. We've given birth to much smaller men and women, and I doubt that Houston or Crockett would recognise themselves in this place their descendants have created. But I've stood upon the stones of the Alamo, and at San Jacinto, and felt the ghosts of the men and women who died there in my blood and bone.
So... I'm a man without a State, as well.
But the love is still there, and the pride, and the heritage, and the principles, and the memories of what they mean, and what they could have been. You could sooner seperate me from my spine than from those things... for they're deep in my soul, and they've helped to make me what I am: A Texican, a Man of the Aniwunyiya, and an American.
And if that is "a wicked thing"... then to Hell with you, sirrah.
Ian Palmers wrote:
, and, more challengingly, how do we see each other's?
I loved Britian once, as deeply as I loved what Washington and Jefferson tried to build here. So it's not possible for me to view her with the dispassionate eyes of an observer.
I think that Britian is a once great country, with once great people, who've become a caricature of themselves the way that the "United States" has become a funhouse caricature of America.
You are no longer breeding, nor possibly capable of breeding, Kiplings, Francis Burtons, Capsticks, and Nelsons... and that means that you are on your way to extinction just as we are. That which once made you is no more, and it may not be possible to revive it. A pity, that.
There is no more Britian, there is only NuLabour, and that is a sad and sorry substitute for a nation that once shaped the entirety of western civilization.
Let's see...
Brazil: impossible for me to describe how I feel about that one. I love that land with the aching passion that a 20 year old feels for his first lover - and that a 50 year old feels meeting her 30 years hence and seeing her gone to seed. She was wonderful once... but she's destroyed herself over the decades.
Mexico? Mexico just *is*. She is beautiful, corrupt, violent, sensuous, and as passionate and deadly as a Jaurez hooker. I find her endlessly fascinating, and I love her peoples - but I wouldn't live there on a bet.
Other countries... ?
There are no other countries that are worth mentioning.
I think that there are a LOT of people that would like for nationalism, and patriotism, and love of country to be "a wicked thing", and they're given to doing whatever they can to make those things four lettre words.
And it sticks in their craws that there are unreconstructed savages like me who don't see it their way and refuse to agree. _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
I was born in Maryland and after a bit of traveling when i was knee high to a grasshopper I ended up in Southeas Texas I was unlucky to end up in a racist city that only the older or less educated hated thier fellow man because of skin color.
It isn't like that now but as shakespear said
"the evil that men do live on after them the good is oft enterid with thier bones"
Thinking back when i first moved here to Texas I thought it was the friendly place on Earth I no longer think that. It is still friendlier than other places and not somuch as others. I was lucky to spend over 3 years in Japan and the people there were so friendly it amazed me but i did see some not so friendly people there too.
I can't say anything about other places since i haven't been anywhere else but i am sure it is the samething that a few bad apples ruin the bunch.
I am afraid Ironbear is right many people confuse the Government with the country and that is because that is what is shown to use in the news
Take Japan for instance they don't have to let you see a lawyer if you are arrested for a few days and by the time they are done with you you wished you had done the crime or so the locals told me.
Look at what has been in the news about China i bet the people are nice but all we get to see is how the government is taking homes.
So is that long winded (It is for me)
In finishing i leave you with a quote from southpark
"Blame Canada"
Without wishing to offend anyones sensibilities, to me, once shorn of the rhetoric, nationalism is little more than the human equivalent of a dog piddling up a lampost to mark his territory.
Of course love of one's geographical territory can be a positive force when it promotes a sense of kinship or establishes/re-inforces a decent way of behaviour for example - but inevitably this can only be at the cost of defining other nations and ethical codes as not-kin and evil.
As a Brit I do feel the occasional twinge of pride (although more often of shame) with regard to my country but this is a purely emotional response born of a psychological need for a tribal identity.
I would also comment that when Britain was considered 'great' e.g. when we had the Empire on which the sun never set, the lot of the ordinary man or woman was pretty shabby: child prostitution, slums, and sweatshops were rife, half the population was disenfranchised, workers could be dismissed out of hand with no compensation, foodstuffs were adulterated, married women had no right to own property (even their own earnings) or to look after their own children... need I go on?
On the plus side you could get drunk for a penny and dead drunk for tuppence and could buy any drug of your choice over the counter. (even babies were routinely dosed on laudunum, that is to say opium in alcohol).
So, sorry, I'm with palmers on this one.
We do know how to make a damn fine cup of tea mind you... _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 637 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: National pride.
"Love of Country"
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said:
"This is my own, my native land"?
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch concentrated all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
------------------Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
They seem to have the poets instead of the barbecue sauce.
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