Political Memes

Patriotism is just a nice word people invented to be proud of their genocidal and colonialist country without feeling too bad about it.

um, no... Americocentric again

Nationalism has to do with pride in a shared cultural identity, whereas Patriotism is pride for one's country.

in other countries, there are strong cultural ties that bond people together. shared language. a relationship to the land. hundreds if not thousands of years of history. some countries have dozens of such groups.

nationalism is a person from that group taking pride in that identity. patriotism is taking pride in your country as a whole. so for example, you can be proud to be Gujarati, and you can be proud to be Indian.

now, in the United States, there really isn't a national identity beyond shopping malls and jingoism. so i can see how nationalism is rarely seen positively. all you get of it is nazis and fake irish frat bros.

but, no, really I think patriotism is a far bigger problem than nationalism. one's language is your flesh and blood, it's who you are. what the fuck does a country mean to you? the people who lock you up?

The only good fascist is a dead fascist

Strange semi related old person story -- back in highschool, one of our teachers had the class write essays on whether nationalism was good or bad. We were then given an option to either present our papers, or do a debate exercise with a kind of round robin pro or con. So you'd partner with 1 other person, debate if it was good or bad, then groups of 4 doing the same, until it was the whole class. In my paper and in my discussions, I had used a similar approach as this comic -- basically just establishing what nationalism was vs patriotism, and drawing nazi's in as an example too. No one in those discussions contested that Nazi's were nationalists -- but they still argued in favour of it.

By the end, I was the only person who thought nationalism was overall 'bad'. The tide had turned in the groups of 8 stage. Because a hot girl had declared her support for nationalism. That's all it took for people to like/excuse nazis, even back in the early 2000s. An excuse.

If your whole identity is based on the fact you where born at some location on this planet, you really need some self reflection and deprogramming

Nationalism is only good when people are fighting colonialism, e.g. palestine or british era India.

Patriotism is pride in your country.

Nationalism is not knowing the difference between your government and your mommy.

Both are shit. It seems like american culture in general is just lesser-evilism.

fuck either of them.

no loyalty to any state.

This is bullshit.

Even if the technical definition of "patriotism" is all of these good things, it doesn't matter because everyone thinks it means all of those bad things.

And the brainwashing goes on and on..

Existed just 4 years

Lost a war againt the USA

Prouldy waved 150 years later

Patriotism isn't a good thing at all.

Office meme, they're the same picture. The world no longer needs people who are willing to die for, or equally kill for, their country

Both are tribalism of different levels of intensity. Our brains are predisposed for us-them mentality, some stronger than others, some can leave it behind others never will. It's also the most exploitable feeling in the history of our species, with fear may be the close contender.

Obviously a government embracing tribalism leads to horrid shit (everyone without an armband knows it) BUT ignoring it completely allows something else snake its way into that void. If you're lucky its something vegetarian like football hooliganism, if you-re not -- pan-nationalism, religious zealotry, whatever the 4chan incel shit is, people who can't or won't leave tribal mentality will find a dirt to roll in.

IMHO it is worth considering implementing a civic religion a-la french republicanism. Yes it can be a gateway to nationalism, but it also lets tribal minded people wave their flags and "guard the civic values" or whatever while the rest of us continue our lives in peace. As a bonus it improves civic participation and if you're attacked -- well there's already something for you to rally around.

Nobody should be patriotic with the genocidal settler colony that is the USA.

Both are stupid, especially if you live in the USA, where your government will let you be rendered homeless and dead in the street if you can't pay enough money into the capitalist machine.

What's to be proud of?