NationStates Jolt Archive

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Nationalism and Patriotism have the same meaning except only one has a connotation of racist.

Am I missing something?

I'm asking this because the crazy redneck Americans call themselves patriots and anyone else who has strong emotional ties to a country and wants to work in it's best interests is called a Nationalist and dismissed as right wing.

Actually, I think its the people who think that Nationalism and Patriotism have the same meaning that are second-best avoided.

The people best voided are those that mix the two up. *nod*

All patriots love their nation; all those who love their nation are patriots.

Nationalism doesn't have much of a meaning really. It usually either means want for national independance or willing to go to extreme lengths to preserve your country.

Patriotism just means pride, love or whatever for your country.

i see it as being patriotic is to love one's nation.
to be nationalistic is to take that to extremes, including militarism, or extremes of action (whatever that may entail)

i'm not really patriotic, myself. i am proud of aspects of this country, and of this European Union we are part of, but to say i love them.... nah.

Sometimes, when people have no confidence and faith in themselves and don't see their inherent personal value, they start identifying with something that they think is more worthy than their own self. When that something is your country, it's called patriotism. If even that isn't enough to make you feel comfortable with yourself, you may also feel the need to hurt, beat or overpower others, in which case you're a nationalist.

And if you are comfortable with the fact that you are worth everything, that your individual dreams, wants and needs are in fact worth existing, then you don't have to be either. Nor do you have to be religious, marxist or any other sort of ideology that allows people to identify with abstract concepts by means of assigning patterns of behaviour to them.

na·tion·al·ism (nsh-n-lzm, nshn-)
n.
1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.
2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.

pa·tri·ot·ism (ptr--tzm)
n.
Love of and devotion to one's country.

Certainly similar, and a lot of nationalists are probably patriots. But not so similar that you're not silly for mixing them up or thinking they're the same.
All patriots love their nation; all those who love their nation are patriots.

All tautologies are tautologies, and all tautologies are tautologies.

Nationalism is a term that refers to a doctrine or political movement that holds that a nation—usually defined in terms of ethnicity or culture—has the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community based on a shared history and common destiny.

Patriotism simply "denotes positive and supportive attitudes towards a 'fatherland.'"

Patriotism doesn't call for nations based on ethnicity or culture -- the Hispanic can be just as patriotic as the white as the black as the Chinese as the WHOEVER in one's country.

Ok, sorry guys. They just seemed to be awfully similar and I wondered if they weren't just two ways of saying the same thing.

Sorry again.

Nationalism is a nasty dirty word, patriotism not so much.

Ok, sorry guys. They just seemed to be awfully similar and I wondered if they weren't just two ways of saying the same thing.

Sorry again.

don't apologize, they ARE the same thing. favorite quote:

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of the human race.

I don't like either. They're both manifestations of plebeian identitarianism and work to destroy individualism.

All patriots love their nation; all those who love their nation are patriots.

That would include those devil Islamo-fasci-communists that you so lovingly hate.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm rather proud if somebody called me a nationalist.

Then again the nationalism taught to me not just about pride of one's nations but about how that nations seats equal with other nations in the world.

I don't like either. They're both manifestations of plebeian identitarianism and work to destroy individualism.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but civilization since the dawn of man has always been about people living cooperatively in a community and giving part of their wealth to a common good to maintain a collective, that is why we organize ourselves into nations today, this is because it's much easier for us as humans to cooperate our efforts in society to avoid duplication of effort and waste, which would happen if everyone individually had to look after themselves. It's either men in black or a mob with sticks who come and take your taxes - take your pick.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm rather proud if somebody called me a nationalist.

Then again the nationalism taught to me not just about pride of one's nations but about how that nations seats equal with other nations in the world.

That's patriotism I believe, nationalism is that our home country is a nation above nations, patriotism is that your country is a nation among nations.

Nationalism, as history shows, is divisive and dangerous, internationalism on the other hand allows consensus discussion and cooperation between peoples.

Nationalism, as history shows, is divisive and dangerous, internationalism on the other hand allows consensus discussion and cooperation between peoples.

Well, that's true, the founding people of my country tried to balance nationalism and internationalism, branding it as "our kind of nationalism", as opposed to chauvinistic nationalism that is inherent in facist states. People were desperate for a national identity back then, because this was a nation which has a geopolitical sphere that contain many cultures, languages and religion (though it has one prevailing religion)

(Though, the balancing act didn't pan out so well when balancing communism (not socialism), nationalism (actually I think this was about a secular government) and religion. Suffice to say, all hell broke loose.)

IMO, the patriotism theme always come hand in hand with nationalism, though what kind of perverted patriotism can be spawned from a chauvinistic nationalist state, there are examples of that.

Well, that's true, the founding people of my country tried to balance nationalism and internationalism, branding it as "our kind of nationalism", as opposed to chauvinistic nationalism that is inherent in facist states. People were desperate for a national identity back then, because this was a nation which has a geopolitical sphere that contain many cultures, languages and religion (though it has one prevailing religion)

(Though, the balancing act didn't pan out so well when balancing communism (not socialism), nationalism (actually I think this was about a secular government) and religion. Suffice to say, all hell broke loose.)

IMO, the patriotism theme always come hand in hand with nationalism, though what kind of perverted patriotism can be spawned from a chauvinistic nationalist state, there are examples of that.

Well literally everyone has that inspiration and willingness to be nationalistic and think of your nation as above all others, but this must be resisted. Nationalism can literally justify anything.

Well literally everyone has that inspiration and willingness to be nationalistic and think of your nation as above all others, but this must be resisted. Nationalism can literally justify anything.
And what then is the difference between someone who thinks of one's nation above all others and is willing to hurt others for it, and someone who thinks one's class (say, the "working class") is above all others and is willing to hurt others for it?

And what then is the difference between someone who thinks of one's nation above all others and is willing to hurt others for it, and someone who thinks one's class (say, the "working class") is above all others and is willing to hurt others for it?

its not that the working class is superior its that the working class is the majority and is oppressed SO THERE!!!

they are both right-wing but Nationalism is considerbly more extreme and facist

And what then is the difference between someone who thinks of one's nation above all others and is willing to hurt others for it, and someone who thinks one's class (say, the "working class") is above all others and is willing to hurt others for it?

Majority rules, plus classes are universal.

Majority rules, plus classes are universal.
So Chinese nationalism is okay compared to Japanese nationalism because the Chinese are in the majority?

And classes are hardly universal. The Bourgeoisie aren't the same as the working class, thus being in one excludes one from being in another.

Do you really think it's a coincidence that both Marx and Herder were followers of Hegel? That Marx wrote in the time in which extreme nationalism was born?

Two weeks ago former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, gave a an interesting speech on this very topic. He slags of at the current Prime Minister and there's some odd layout issues but it is worth reading. Here's an extract.

************************

I have long been interested in views George Orwell first promulgated in 1943, when he sought to distinguish between nationalism and patriotism.

In the popular debate, nationalism and patriotism are often regarded as much of the same thing. But, in fact, they are wildly different.

Orwell pointed out that nationalism is a notion arising from the myth of a people, whereas patriotism is belief in a particular place and its history. He made the point that nationalism is invariably populist, while patriotism is both traditionalist and inclusive.

The historian, John Lukacs, made the point too. He said a patriot will not exclude a person from another race from the community where they have lived side by side and whom he has known for many years; but a nationalist will always remain suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his kind of people  or, more likely, his kind of thinking. Shades there of John Howards discomfort with Australias multi-cultural community and his distrust of its Islamic community.

The fact is, nationalism is arguably more exclusionary than racism. It is the generator of those phoney and parochial distinctions between the civic and the human community, owing to its propensity and ability to stigmatise cultural, religious and linguistic attributes.

Indeed, Adolph Hitler, perhaps the exemplar populist, wrote explicitly on the subject in his Mein Kampf, I was a nationalist but not a patriot. Hitler also said in 1927 in a speech entitled Nationalism and Patriotism, that we are not national; we are nationalist!. In other words, we are not simply patriotic; we are nationalist, where he distinguished celebration of the state as between cosmopolitanism and the attitudes of the volk; the myth arising from the mainstream.

The German word volksgemienschaft or peoples community identified and defined this primary grouping; in Hitlers terms, his concept of the volk as distinct from the German state itself.

In English, the simple translation of the German volk is people. But the volk were not simply people or the people; they were a community of particular people.

In the reporting of the Nationalism and Patriotism speech, the Volkischer Beobachter, the Nazi partys organ, which was edited by Hitler himself, carried the subtitle the international cosmopolitanism of the upper ten thousand &..&the dynastic patriotism. In Hitlers day the term elite had not arrived. But if it had, the nationalist in him would have compelled him to use it: for its easy shorthand, if nothing else.

Margaret Thatcher famously used the phrase for all of us, when at the time, she completely meant, for some of us. John Howards all of us was reduced to the single word we in his infamous 2001 advertisement.

I say this not to suggest or to align, in any way, Margaret Thatcher or John Howard with Adolf Hitler. To do so would be as unreasonable as it would be absurd.

I use Hitlers words in this narrative only to make the distinction between nationalism and patriotism which he himself made. For, importantly, in this context, he was the twentieth centurys leading nationalist; its leading anti-patriot.

Lukacs tells us that nationalism is atavistically human, deeper and stronger than (merely) class consciousness. The trouble, he says, is not only its latent inhumanity, but its proclaimed love of the people. He makes the point that nationalism is both self centred and selfish because human love cannot be the love of oneself, it must the love of another. But not, it seems, for those outside the nationalist tabernacle or peoples community.

On the other hand, patriotism encompasses all that is traditional, inclusive and cosmopolitan. It is not biological because the charity of human regard has nothing to do with biology. Nature is biological but nature has and shows no charity.

Let me pull the threads of this short dissertation together.




In political terms, for instance, I am a patriot, I am not a nationalist, for the all the reasons I have referred to earlier. John Howard is a nationalist and not a patriot for all the reasons I have also referred to. This is not to say John Howard does not have, what we might call, patriotic instincts; of course he does, but they all come from his larger carpetbag of nationalism.

For him, Gallipoli was an exercise in nationalism. For me, Kokoda was an exercise in patriotism. The nationalism surrounding the First World War and Gallipoli in particular, has fuelled the Australian conservative story for nine decades. The same nationalism which prevented the conservative parties from similarly celebrating Australian heroism in Papua New Guinea and in South East Asia. Those Australians fought for all we had created here and become, not for some notion of a ruling class or peoples community, let alone an empire.

It is no coincidence at all that a predecessor party of the current Liberal party called itself the Nationalist Party. It was led by another nationalist at the time, Prime Minister Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister most associated with the populism and jingoism of national bravery and sacrifice. The Prime Minister who threw his nationalist cloak and the flag around the long years of the mourning. These days, the conservative rural rump which once called itself the Country Party, now calls itself the National Party. Different families of leopards but always with the same spots.

All this stuff about the swelling chest of class or group riveted by a superior sense of self, is of itself, nationalist.

Nationalism is, I believe, a dangerous and divisive tendency; its stock and trade is jingoism, populism and exclusion of the most calculating kind.

************************

The full speech (to an audience of young film-makers) can be read here:

http://www.keating.org.au/cfm/details.cfm?ID=109

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Nationalism and Patriotism have the same meaning except only one has a connotation of racist.

Am I missing something?

I'm asking this because the crazy redneck Americans call themselves patriots and anyone else who has strong emotional ties to a country and wants to work in it's best interests is called a Nationalist and dismissed as right wing.

I tend to avoid both "patriots" and "nationalists".

It's either men in black or a mob with sticks who come and take your taxes - take your pick.

Good line. Love it.

This topic is what I had to write about in a school exam (received B+). Basically, what I wrote was similar to:

nationalism is that our home country is a nation above nations, patriotism is that your country is a nation among nations.


Patriotism is about loving your nation because it's your nation, your homeland, not above, but among nations, while nationalism is that you love your nation for it being superior to other nations, and thus, nationalism requires to somehow smack other nations badly to give proove of that. (Which doesn't mean that patriots don't tend to go to war, but the concepts are different.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Nationalism and Patriotism have the same meaning except only one has a connotation of racist.

Am I missing something?

I'm asking this because the crazy redneck Americans call themselves patriots and anyone else who has strong emotional ties to a country and wants to work in it's best interests is called a Nationalist and dismissed as right wing.

The term nationalism is a bit obsolete these days. A person's country, once upon a time, was only one of many parts of their identity of allegiances. A person could be a citizen of Florence, a subject of the King of France, and an adherent of the Lutheran Church. All of those things had equal social weight. Since nationalism came along such a person would simply be "an Italian."

Whether he likes Italy or not has nothing to do with the fact that nationalism defines him according to the nation he comes from, not what he thinks of it. I don't even own a flag, but wherever I go, I'm an American National. But one could just as easily be a patriotic tribesman who does not recognize himself as a subject of the Saudi crown, but does strongly ally with his tribal chief. Such a man is patriotic (which means "identified with one's father-figure"), but not nationalistic, because he does not identify with a nation, but a tribe.

Radical Nationalism, which you seem to be alluding to in your post, is the extreme notion that because your nation is the only thing that defines you, it should be the only thing in the world that matters. Like conservatives who, when faced with the loosing prospect of continued war in the Middle East say "we should just drop a bomb on the whole thing." They pretend they are patriotic, but they seem a lot more patriotic with a Republican in the White House than they did with a Democrat. They like that Bush goes to Iraq to turn the place into a shithole, but they don't like that Clinton went over to eastern Europe to save a bunch of Muslims from getting killed by a genocidal dictator. So much so that we had to call them "ethnic Albanians," because some Americans like anything with the word "ethnic" in it, but we wouldn't have given a shit about a bunch of dead Muslims.

Oh, ok. Thanks guys. I have been doing some google-ing and as it turns out I'm not the only person who has had some trouble telling the two apart.

I think I understand them now tho. Thanks again. :)

As we would use them now:

Patriotism is to say "God Bless America," as many do today and have done.

Nationalism is to say "God bless America and no place else," as the character of Chris Rock's opponent did in the movie Head of State.

Patriotism is a love of one's country and no particular mention of others.

Nationalism is a love of one's country at the expense of others.

At least that's how they may be used today, especially after nationalism go such a bad name after WWII.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but civilization since the dawn of man has always been about people living cooperatively in a community and giving part of their wealth to a common good to maintain a collective, that is why we organize ourselves into nations today, this is because it's much easier for us as humans to cooperate our efforts in society to avoid duplication of effort and waste, which would happen if everyone individually had to look after themselves. It's either men in black or a mob with sticks who come and take your taxes - take your pick.

That's just plain stupid. Why should I have any more connection to some guy all the way in Oregon, or better yet Alaska, than I should to a guy living a few miles away just over the Mexican border or someone in Canada? It is silly that I should have some sort of kinship with someone just because of an arbitrary characteristic such as an accident of birth or gender or skin color. I will choose who I give my wealth to, but it will not be as part of a mystical "common good"; it will be because I chose to associate with specific individuals and wish to help them, not because I am forced to help them because of some meaningless commonality under an abstract collective.

Gee, but without nationalism... there won't even be a concept of a nation,... well a state would probably exist, but definitely not nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

And to think that supposedly egalitarian nations such as the US and French uses the concept of civic nationalism in building their respective nations.

NO! This is where I draw the line, nationalism isn't something that uses the idea of superiority over others, it is a concept of nation that holds that a nation—usually defined in terms of ethnicity or culture—has the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community based on a shared history and common destiny.

This is about identity, a bridge for the gap between the citizens of different creeds within a nation.

Your current view of nationalism is tainted by what little you know except from what the media tells you to. Here's a little example :

"Deutschland Uber Alles"

Do you know that Germany was formed from several duchies, principalities, city states and what not? This motto was actually to promote that the then fledgeling nation of Germany is above such states and that the new identity of this nation is Germany, where as the will of Germany outranks the will of those states that is composes it.

And then along came the Nationalist Socialists, they even perverted both of those ideas that formed the name of their party. First of all, nationalism isn't about race, religion, creed,... it's about a nation,... certainly not by massacring the Jews. Second, to achieve the condition where the citizen of a nation is living in harmony (excuse the cliche), a hint of socialist agenda should be thrown in the mix,... and not by euthanising and sterilizing citizens that hasn't met the standards of normalcy.

Oh, you want some irony? Do you know that Zionism is another form of nationalism?

For some personal reasons I think the US has reached an alarming state of extreme nationalism as well. Either that or fundamentalism.

Sigh... okay, I might as well be talking to a brick wall, but all I'm saying is, please research the concept before condemning it into the swastika marked heap.

That would include those devil Islamo-fasci-communists that you so lovingly hate.

Wow. Nice to see posters retain the moral high ground when dealing with trolls:rolleyes:

Worthy of Greater Trostia I feel.

The term nationalism has no merit now. Much like fascism, it has been appropriated by an ignorant, rabid left wing as a device to tarnish those who oppose them.

The term nationalism has no merit now. Much like fascism, it has been appropriated by an ignorant, rabid left wing as a device to tarnish those who oppose them.

Probably, but it's a concept that I'm willing to fight for :p

If only the days of Der Fuhrer could be brought back! Then we'd get those ignorant, rabid left-wingers and their foolish resistance to fascism!

And the next line would be :

Launch all ZIG HEILS!


-whew, Zigs warp far to many, captain-

Wow. Nice to see posters retain the moral high ground when dealing with trolls:rolleyes:

"Fuck morals" - The blessed Chris

Worthy of Greater Trostia I feel.

Pretty much no one fits that description.

The term nationalism has no merit now. Much like fascism, it has been appropriated by an ignorant, rabid left wing as a device to tarnish those who oppose them.

If only the days of Der Fuhrer could be brought back! Then we'd get those ignorant, rabid left-wingers and their foolish resistance to fascism!

That's just plain stupid. Why should I have any more connection to some guy all the way in Oregon, or better yet Alaska, than I should to a guy living a few miles away just over the Mexican border or someone in Canada? It is silly that I should have some sort of kinship with someone just because of an arbitrary characteristic such as an accident of birth or gender or skin color. I will choose who I give my wealth to, but it will not be as part of a mystical "common good"; it will be because I chose to associate with specific individuals and wish to help them, not because I am forced to help them because of some meaningless commonality under an abstract collective.

Well I am sorry then, but unless your languishing in prison for tax evasion, you are giving money to that common collective good by paying taxes. So if you really believe that individualist garbage you spew, how about you don't pay taxes to prove it, see what happens to those who reject the collective. Let's see what roads you will drive on.

"Deutschland Uber Alles"

Do you know that Germany was formed from several duchies, principalities, city states and what not? This motto was actually to promote that the then fledgeling nation of Germany is above such states and that the new identity of this nation is Germany, where as the will of Germany outranks the will of those states that is composes it.

And then along came the Nationalist Socialists, they even perverted both of those ideas that formed the name of their party.
You're oversimplifying, trying desperately to somehow seperate the nationalism you apparently support with its root, which is found in a Hegelian view of history and the romantic nationalism that came from it.

Yes, the idea of the 1848 nationalist movement and the Deutschlandlied was to inspire people living in various German states to put the idea of Germany as a nation above the interests of their own governments. But already there was a huge anti-French influence in there. Being German for the people of 1848 meant also to be against the French.

And once Germany actually became a country and the first generation of people produced by that country came to power, any pretext of peaceful nationalism went straight out the window and it was all about being bigger, better and having more colonies.

The Nazis were just the product of that dream being shattered, a mix of Wilheminian nationalism with the bizarre esoteric and fatalistic tendencies of Weimar culture.

So if you really believe that individualist garbage you spew, how about you don't pay taxes to prove it, see what happens to those who reject the collective. Let's see what roads you will drive on.
So you're saying his argument is incorrect because people with guns will punish him for acting on it?

The one differance between Patriot and Nationalist is that historically the word 'Patriot' has been used in wartime to describe a rebel fighting against a foreign occupier without government support, whereas on the other hand 'Nationalist' has been used in times of peace to describe a person that holds certain political views about how their country should be run.
It is a phenomenon mostly restricted to the USA that in time of peace some people still choose to refer to themselves as 'Patriots' despite the fact that they are not in any war that can really threaten the freedom of thier nation.

na·tion·al·ism (nsh-n-lzm, nshn-)
n.
1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.
2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.

pa·tri·ot·ism (ptr--tzm)
n.
Love of and devotion to one's country.

Certainly similar, and a lot of nationalists are probably patriots. But not so similar that you're not silly for mixing them up or thinking they're the same.

Right.

Might I add:

Nationalism, from nation, from latin natio (nationis), from the verb nascor (past participle: natus), meaning "being born". "Natio" refers also to what in contemporary english is called "ethnicity".

Patriotism, from latin patria (patriae), meaning literally "fatherland" (the land of the father and forefathers; differs from "motherland", as this means "the land that IS one's mother", and not "the land OF one's mother"). The idea of "patria" is linked also to traditions (again, from latin traditio, (from tradere) thing that is passed from one to another) and more generally values passed on through generations, not necessarily depending from ethnicity.

All tautologies are tautologies, and all tautologies are tautologies.
Also, the above quoted sentence is a tautology. ;)

You're oversimplifying, trying desperately to somehow seperate the nationalism you apparently support with its root, which is found in a Hegelian view of history and the romantic nationalism that came from it.

Yes, the idea of the 1848 nationalist movement and the Deutschlandlied was to inspire people living in various German states to put the idea of Germany as a nation above the interests of their own governments.

...


To sum it up, I'd say that IN THE PAST nationalism, expecially in countries that had been frequently invaded and splitted between smallish local states and occupied areas (like Germany and Italy), played a somewhat positive role in liberating those countries from the invaders and stopping local rivalries, creating the national states other countries, like France and Britain, built at the end of Middle Age and through Renaissance.

IN THE PRESENT DAYS, however, this positive role has ended (at least, in Europe), and it has become more a windscreen for ultra-right-wingers (when not openly fascist nostalgics).

So, we'd better dismiss nationalism as a thing of the past, or merely retain it as folklore and for soccer matches. The social and political progress is leading us OUT of nationalism - the EU is a good example of leaving nationalism behind.

Btw, I'd like to see the EU countries sending a single delegation under the EU flag at the next Olympic Games...

So you're saying his argument is incorrect because people with guns will punish him for acting on it?

When you get past and look under all the niceties of 'freedom' and 'justice', all that holds society together is the state monopoly on organized violence, the state takes a part of every individuals wealth to build a common or collective society with infrastructure etc that is public property, even 'private' property isn't so much because it can be expropriated and is regulated by the state. Without this model modern civilization would not exist.

Society has developed in a collective 'nationhood' way because of the simply logicality that cooperation and coordination of our efforts as humans prevents duplication of effort and waste which is what happens when societies are devolved from centralized systems into federal or anarcho-individualist models. In this modern age technology enables a totally unitary state to be the most efficient in distribution of resources and the welfare of the people, while in the past federal systems were imposed for technical reasons because it was harder for a central government to maintain order without constituent units, ie feudalism, now it is not. Federal or autonomous systems create divisions in society and stop distribution of resources to the entirety of the population.

So the answer to your question is yes, because if he doesn't pay part of his wealth to a common good ultimately society will punish him by taking more wealth, making him temporary or permanent state property (prison) or killing himself, the ultimate act of any state is it's ability to destroy those who seek to destroy it. And you know why this is? Because without the State, mankind will not survive.

patriotism is love of the state, the political superstructure that governs the nation (pater), nationalism is love of the nation. it's people that go for ethnic nationalism who are racist because they believe that only people of a particular ethnicity belong to a nation. civic nationalism is different (usually, there are still civic nationalists who would discriminate on skin colour or language) but then there are people who would argue that civic nationalism is not nationalism at all but something else entirely seeing as the definition of a nation is usually given as being an ethnically homogenous group.

most people don't make the distinction though, probably because they don't know there is one.

Btw, I'd like to see the EU countries sending a single delegation under the EU flag at the next Olympic Games...

I've always said that the US should send 50 separate teams to the Olympics. We'd be bound to get more medals given 49 more tries at each one.

Well I am sorry then, but unless your languishing in prison for tax evasion, you are giving money to that common collective good by paying taxes. So if you really believe that individualist garbage you spew, how about you don't pay taxes to prove it, see what happens to those who reject the collective. Let's see what roads you will drive on.

No, I'm not "giving to the common collective good" by paying taxes, I'm being forced to give money to the demagogues chosen by the idiot masses. It's fairly obvious that there is no consent in such a relationship, seeing as how I'd be thrown into jail for refusing to pay (and no legitimate contract can involve such. One's will, mind and body are inalienable.) Seeing as how roads, along with all other infrastructure, was owned privately before the rise of the almighty central state, there would be no loss. In fact, seeing how bad the roads are today, with their god awful congestion and perennial construction (to trick the mob into thinking something is being done), I'd really be better off without all this collectivist garbage.

When you get past and look under all the niceties of 'freedom' and 'justice'...
You know, it says a lot when you're being sarcastic about these things. Can I assume that you'd still be if a corporatist government decided to make poo people work off their debts in the salt mines or something?

Without this model modern civilization would not exist.
It wouldn't look exactly like it does today (for example there wouldn't have been two world wars or hundreds of millions killed by mad dictators), but I'm afraid you're going to have to prove that "modern civilisation" wouldn't exist at all.

Society has developed in a collective 'nationhood' way because of the simply logicality that cooperation and coordination of our efforts as humans prevents duplication of effort and waste which is what happens when societies are devolved from centralized systems into federal or anarcho-individualist models.
You really need to stop equating "community" and "nation". People formed communities because they couldn't survive by themselves, true. As those grew bigger and more specialisation yielded better results, market economics started to develop and at the same time the guys with the biggest spear began to develop the first concepts of government, some better than others. Did you know that the first time humans wrote down the concept of "freedom" was in a pamphlet against unjust taxation? The two concepts of society (free people free to interact with each other vs a centralised society directed by those with the most weaponry) developed side by side throughout history, occasionally getting tangled up with each other on the way.

The "nation", as we understand it today, as a concept on the other hand was developed by philosophers who thought they had history figured out. Hegel thought that there is some abstract idea of the "Zeitgeist", some sort of inherent, perhaps pre-programmed logic to history. Ideas would pop up, compete with each other and then eventually disappear again, and along with the ideas civilisations and cultures. If someone came up with liberalism as an idea and it becomes, that isn't because this guy was particularly smart, but because "the time is right" for it.

Other philosophers took this idea and developed it further. Marx was one of them with his historical dialecticism. Johann Gottfried Herder was another, and his idea was that rather than ideas floating about in the ether, it was the "Volksgeist" that was important. Rather than ideas competing throughout the ages, it was peoples. Every individual of that people is pretty insignificant - everything he or she is, does or wants is determined by which people he or she belongs to. To simplify, he said that peoples had their own minds, almost like an ant colony and we were just the elements that allowed our people to act.

Romantic Nationalism was his movement, and it was the beginning of nationalism in the modern age. And without nationalism (be it the French revolution, German unification or any other such event) there wouldn't have been the complex system of governance and the passive acceptance of it by everyone. In short, the nation is a concept that has nothing to do with the fact that people are social animals and can't survive for long by themselves.

I also see that you apparently picked up on the old "the free market is duplication" idea. I think you should move beyond Soviet textbooks, because the argument didn't work then and certainly doesn't work now.

In this modern age technology enables a totally unitary state to be the most efficient in distribution of resources and the welfare of the people...
One of my lecturers last semester is a General Equilibrium Theorist. He got together with a Game Theorist and proved that finding the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium for a large game is exactly as complicated as calculating market prices for an economy of the same size.

What I'm trying to say is: they haven't been able to do it even with the use of supercomputers. So I'm afraid that even if we took the view that it isn't inherently impossible, we still don't have the calculating capacity to calculate a price system that would be efficient or welfare-effective.

So the answer to your question is yes...
Which is a non-sequitur argument. If I say that organised crime is bad and the Mafia will come and kill me as a result, saying it's better for them to exist than not to exist, does that invalidate my original point? Of course not.

I think patriotism leads to nationalism. It's certainly the start of the road to nationalism. And I am fiercely against nationalism and, in a sense, patriotism, largely because I think nations serve more to divide the world into conflict than help peace. Pretty much, I don't think nations should exist.

Yes, the idea of the 1848 nationalist movement and the Deutschlandlied was to inspire people living in various German states to put the idea of Germany as a nation above the interests of their own governments. But already there was a huge anti-French influence in there. Being German for the people of 1848 meant also to be against the French.


If you have Napolen running around loosely in your back garden, conqering whatever comes in his sight and beating up your buddies, you ought to be anti-french. Being against the French at that time was the result of self defense, not agression.

If you have Napolen running around loosely in your back garden, conqering whatever comes in his sight and beating up your buddies, you ought to be anti-french. Being against the French at that time was the result of self defense, not agression.

Napoleon died in 1821, he certainly wasn't running around anybody's back garden in 1848 :rolleyes:

The German-French hatred goes far deeper that a little over-enthusiastic Corse. It had been going on for centuries before that, originating most likely in the early Middle Ages

Napoleon died in 1821, he certainly wasn't running around anybody's back garden in 1848 :rolleyes:

The German-French hatred goes far deeper that a little over-enthusiastic Corse. It had been going on for centuries before that, originating most likely in the early Middle Ages

No, what I meant wasn't that the anti-french feelings of the population were necessary for immedeate self-defense, but that they arose from the war with Napoleon and still stuck around later. It's like... you see, we're still discussing Germany here when we're talking about nationalism, although Hitler died in 1945. You see, the view on Germany as a nationalist nation still sticks around. But, admitted, it indeed goes deeper and reaches back to a time where Charlemagne died and his empire was split between west and east: The west became France and was a unified country since this time. The soon east crumbled up into hundreds of competing states, which would not become Germany as we know it today before the Napoleonic Wars had ended. Of course, these loose states have always fealt threatened by their powerful brother, France, but mostly, the hatred the germans had for the french were retrospectively interpreted into history. For example, by telling the people that their ancestors always lived in fear of the French, you pull up a pretty good reason to go smack on them. But in the Middle Ages, the chaotic situation in Germany would hardly have allowed any campaign against France, which was a unified and powerful nation.


(May have to work on this post later. Have to reorder some stuff so it sounds more accurate and stuff...)

Btw, I'd like to see the EU countries sending a single delegation under the EU flag at the next Olympic Games...
Why don't we just send a single global delegation under the.. UN flag? Then everyone's a winner!

:rolleyes:

English speakers don't really understand "patriotism" because we have no word analogous to "patria."

Patriotism, historically speaking, represents a love for one's country that has the character of a familial bond and a deeply obliging debt: my country raised me, protected me, supported me. I owe my life to my country, and I should be willing to give everything--including my life--to repay that incredibly deep life-debt.

Modern nationalism, however, is more closely analogous to "rooting" for your favorite sports team. You want your country to succeed, to do well, perhaps to "beat" certain other countries of the world. But nationalists are less inclined to see the ethical relation between love of country and personal commitments.

Nationalists sit on the sidelines rooting for war and denouncing anyone who thinks it's not a great idea. Patriots fight for what they believe will serve the true interests of the fatherland--which may mean going to war, a prospect from which no true patriot shrinks; but it may also mean opposing a war that nationalists stupidly enter (but rarely fight themselves).

English speakers don't really understand "patriotism" because we have no word analogous to "patria."

Patriotism, historically speaking, represents a love for one's country that has the character of a familial bond and a deeply obliging debt: my country raised me, protected me, supported me. I owe my life to my country, and I should be willing to give everything--including my life--to repay that incredibly deep life-debt.

Modern nationalism, however, is more closely analogous to "rooting" for your favorite sports team. You want your country to succeed, to do well, perhaps to "beat" certain other countries of the world. But nationalists are less inclined to see the ethical relation between love of country and personal commitments.

Nationalists sit on the sidelines rooting for war and denouncing anyone who thinks it's not a great idea. Patriots fight for what they believe will serve the true interests of the fatherland--which may mean going to war, a prospect from which no true patriot shrinks; but it may also mean opposing a war that nationalists stupidly enter (but rarely fight themselves).

That's one of the most fairest description yet.