No, it’s not. It’s understanding the meaning of words. You’re interpretation of the word implies a level of absolutism that is unrealistic in modern times.
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Zing!
If you’re proud of something you have to share in it to some extent, and the problem with nationalism is that the origin of it is pure accident. So when it comes time to work out who and on what basis anyone gets to share in this pride, then the actual origin is so embarrassing oppositions are invented and invested with pointless intensity just to sustain it.
So, yeah, maybe you can have loads of people being just proud of belonging to some things without issues, but ‘nations’ aren’t one of them
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I think you’re right that the problem of nationalism is tied to ingroup/outgroup dynamics, and I generally have a pretty negative attitude towards “patriotism”, but at the same time I’m not really sure it’s productive to think that we can remove the cultural processes that create that sense of shared culture, fictive kinship, and etc. It’s “purely accidental” in the sense that the lines of demarcation are more arbitrary than people want to admit, but it’s also not accidental at all, in the sense that I think it’s a really bedrock anthropological fact about human social organization.
Beyond that, I’m not sure that society is really possible without a sense of shared identity with others, and I don’t think it’s possible to have as rich and meaningful of a sense of shared identity with everyone in the world, although I think it’s good to cultivate as much of a cosmopolitan sensibility among people as is possible. But both from a cultural and political perspective it seems like some shorter horizons are necessary. Government that’s local to people is probably better in general than government which is too remote. Cultural relativism is important, but the existence of different cultures and the meanings (and pride!) they have for their members is also a wonderful fact about that world. And I think that fact more or less requires the same processes that cause the problems you identify.
When I think about some of this, one thing that comes to mind for me is that the elements of nationalism/patriotism I find really awful are not fundamentally about shared identity, but more about militarism. Maybe national identity and patriotism in the west are historically so closely tied to empire building, military conquest, and war that it’s hard to imagine the former without the latter. But it seems to me that it would be better to try to move our culture away from militarism than to try to get people not to feel any sense of pride in their cultural identity whatsoever.
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Will you have to pass the equivalent of a Life In The UK test?
Yes, and learn the language!
I take this seriously, and historically in Europe the rise of nationalism and the rise of democracy are inextricably linked. I hope that this is historical accident, and in general that actual participation in government can provide the coherence. That the ‘naturalness’ of fusing government and nation as a cultural ‘blob’ is something we just need to prise apart once we get rid of the recency bias.
I hope it’s easier than the UK version, which most Brits (me included) would fail. You have to swot up on the usual rubbish like Henry’s six wives and the Stuarts.
Democracy should not be conflated with freedom.
I’m not exactly sure how freedom develops, but it’s not really through nationalism.
Here’s an example of freedom btw
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I just don’t think it makes sense to criticize tribalism. Tribalism isn’t inherently bad. Tribalism just is. People naturally form social groups. If people don’t possess tribalism organized around country or nation, then it’s probably because their allegiance is given to some other “tribe” of a different nature, which could be a religion or an ideology.
Star-Spangled Banner is great as a spoken-word poem, which is what it was originally meant to be. As a song, it’s just impossible. Almost no one has the range to sing it, but everyone is forced to try.
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If you’re familiar with Lord Of The Flies, this might interest you.
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I don’t disagree. I just think we are using the word a little differently. You mean any organization into groups, in the anthropological sense. I mean a very strong allegiance to those groups, in a sociological sense. The former is basic cultural structure. The latter is a very common, but unfortunate, outcome of the former.
This story is awesome.
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Small sample size. American kids would start cannibalizing each other before they got ashore.
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I am really interested in reading his book too. This shift from the view that humanity is inherently evil to inherently good began in my grad school days in the 90s, especially around research into altruism. I never really bought into the “nasty, brutish and short” view of humans.
There is some great behavioral science research on the surprising potency of kind gestures and small favors.
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I highly recommend the Happiness Lab podcast which digs deep into this very research. Some of what I’ve learned there has changed my actual behaviour, including how I write on this forum.
There’s also just the issue of it being a small group to begin with. I don’t know if it would fall under ‘founder effect’, but it’s at least similar; with a group that small, the influence of personality types can be a lot more prominent. Also the boys all knew each other beforehand, they’d gone out on a boat together.
Which isn’t to go too far into championing the Golding view. It’s not as though LoTF was a documentary or something. Just that story’s not as persuasive as some people are cracking it up to be.
I’m sure it very similar, but there’s a book with the syllabus so you’re not flying blind. Haven’t read it yet, but a few people I know claim it’s not that bad. It’s not a separate exam you just get asked a few questions as part of the interview, so I’m sure that a lot of how tough it is depends on your interviewer.