Deplorable Yankee
Diamond Member
Patriotism has been brought to you by PfizerI've been thinking about patriotism recently.
Often patriotism is used as a political tool, more or less like "cancel culture", it's used to try and force people to think a certain way, often forcing people to accept right wing policies for fear of being called "non-patriotic".
I've also looked at the rise of patriotism in China under Xi.
I've ended up looking at the terminology of Patriotism. "Love of one's country" and comparing it with love in other ways, especially loving a husband or wife.
Often, the manifestation of love between two people isn't about what a person RECEIVES, it's about what they GIVE. People often give up things because they value their loving relationship more than they value those things they did before the relationship.
So, essentially patriotism which is all about a person RECEIVING things from their country, like wealth, like comfort, like a certain way of life etc etc, would be like a man saying he loves his wife because she gives him sex.
Whereas the proper way (in my opinion) of seeing patriotism would be more like, a man gives up drinking on a Friday night to spend it with his wife because he knows his wife doesn't like him going away. This would be the equivalent of a person treating their country with respect. Not littering, not committing crime, participating the political process intelligently and for the greater good of society, rather than for personal gain.
This is often no so clear cut. When the US went to war in Iraq in 2003, people who went to fight might be considered "Patriots" for risking their life for their country. However someone who refused to go fight might also be considered a "Patriot" because the Iraq War was clearly a private enterprise using public money and public services (the armed forces) for profit.