MoMe: Pride and Nation
Day 2,410, 20:01
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Published in Ireland 
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by
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by Raven Anarcho
"Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it...." - George Bernard Shaw
Pride - a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
To be proud of something, you indicate that there are lesser alternatives. You also indicate that you are responsible for the outcome which you're proud of. For example: You are proud to have scored a B on your college tests, because you could've scored a C but didn't. You are responsible for this outcome due to both your intelligence, which clearly separates you from other individuals, and because you took the time to study.
Before you claim to be "proud" of something, you should ask yourself the following questions:
1. Are there lesser or greater alternatives?
2. Why are the alternatives lesser or greater?
3. Did I have control or choice over the outcome?
4. Do others have control over their own alternative outcomes?
5. Does the outcome alone actually differentiate me from others?
Race, gender, religion, nationality. These are the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
RACE
When someone claims to be proud to be black or white, they fail to acknowledge that:
A. They had no choice to be born as such.
B. There are positive and negative traits in the characters of humans, none of which are directly related to race.
Always remember to be proud of who you are and what you do, not what you are.
GENDER
Gender would seem different only in the fact that some people choose to surgically change their gender. But this is done out of stereotype. "What?!" you may ask. You're under the impression that was a rather intolerant statement. But what does a man mean when he says he "feels like he should've been born a woman". Does this not offend women? How would he know what it's like to be a woman?
There are no personality characteristics that apply strictly to men or women. Compassion, arrogance, masculinity, femininity, hardheadedness, sensitivity. These are traits found in a variety of men and women, but not synonymous to strictly one or the other. The only things that separate are physical. Those physical traits say nothing conclusive of personality.
Personally, I feel that the want to be socially accepted is what "feeling like a woman is". Be yourself, as yourself. I believe that because the world is becoming more socially accepting to men and women who do not fit stereotypes, and more socially accepting to homosexuals, transgender-ism will no longer serve its purpose and will become less common as time goes on. In the end, it's the world who should accept everyone the way they are, knowing we are all different. Do not change for a blind world. Open their eyes.
RELIGION
Religion is different in the sense that people choose their religion. But do they all? Is it a choice of your religion if you choose not to change it, or simply your choice not to research the alternatives with an open mind?
1. For once, open your mind to the possibility that another religion, or no religion, may be correct.
2. Research alternatives. When you read something, don't immediately assume it to be false just because it's different than your religion states. Keep in mind you've left that religion behind and are now open minded.
3. Take the information and make an informed decision, or even choose to remain agnostic.
4. Have faith knowing that, for the Christians reading, there are "born-again Christians" who "lose their way" and find it back to Christianity. It's ok to stop following the religion, so long as you, if you believe it a mistake, ask forgiveness for sinning, going astray ect.
5. If your religion, unlike Christianity, is unnaccepting of those who leave it, then once its all over with ask yourself if it's really the right religion for you in the first place.
At this stage, there are still no human characteristics which clearly divide those of each religion from one another. However, at least it was now an actual choice of yours, and not simply something you were born with that you never thought twice to give up.
NATIONALISM
And now, nationalism. Perhaps the trickiest of the horsemen, much like religion in the sense that people are born with a nationality, but can change it.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
-Albert Einstein
Timmy: Hey God.
Go
😛Hey Timmy, please have a seat in my office.
Timmy: Thanks
Go
😛So as you know, you're due to be born in 9 months so it's time to choose your birthplace.
Timmy: Sweet.
Go
😛So we have only 2 availabilities right now. Somalia or the United States.
Timmy: ...hmmm...
Go
😛Well in Somalia you're more likely to live in poverty, while even the poor in the US are pretty well off in comparison. They've scratched my back so I've scratched theirs.
Timmy: Well I guess I'll pick the US then.
Go
😛Wise choice.
Ok now wake up to reality. None of us chose where we were born. Imagine a world where people who share similarities could cheaply and easily move to live with others of similar personalities and beliefs. That is not Earth you're imagining.
Ask yourself:
1. Have I ever lived in any other nations?
2. Did I notice aspects in the culture or people which I found to be less or more favourable?
3. Do I think that from that experience I grasped an understanding of the different cultures and people throughout most areas of the world?
4. Do I have the money and time to move to one of those nations?
If you've lived in a handful of nations, could differentiate one from the other, and had the money to move back, but chose to stay, then guess what? You CHOSE to stay. Be proud of your decision.
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
Aside from the dysfunctional relationship with pride, what do these four things have in common?
Governments of past and present have used these things to control and influence their populations. They help unite us as a group, only to divide us as a whole. They all serve positive purposes, drawing motivation from within. But they are doomed to lead us to our own self-destruction, should we not overcome their power over us.
After September 11th, 2001, the United States was near an all time high on patriotism. The Bush administration used this patriotism to send America into Iraq, which most Americans disapproved of years later. This is nationalism at its purest, serving its destined purpose. It was the same patriatism that led Americans, centuries earlier, to declare their independence from an oppressive Britain. They were united by the only similarity they all shared aside from being human, their residence. But it motivated them, and provided comradery and a common mentality needed to win a revolution.
But at the end of the day, though they all had their nationality in common, it said nothing about who they were as a character. Had the British not thought lesser of their territories, there'd be no justification for the Americans to think themselves different than the British either.
BE PROUD TO BE HUMAN
Can we be proud to be the only thing we all have in common? I believe not. We've done so many horrible things to ourselves and the world around us. We are our own biggest threat, and a potential threat to the entire universe.
But be proud in the fact that we can change.
It's unreasonable to be proud of what we are, as it says nothing conclusive about us. Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians. We've all done more harm than good, and the good often comes to undo the bad. Who would the allied forces of world war II saved from concentration camps had they never been used in the first place by other humans? Some of those allied nations had even ran their own concentration camps in the past.
We should strive to be proud of what we are, but in the end the only thing we all share in common is our humanity. We should strive to see eachother as one. Only then can we make true progress worth being proud of.
I want to be proud to be human
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HOW DOES EREPUBLIK PLAY INTO ALL THIS?
I'd accept those who are proud to be eIrish or eCroatian any day over RL nationalists. Unlike in RL, we can so easily change communities here. We can get nearly an entire understanding of other communities just by studying it from the outside. In that sense they CHOOSE their nationality in game.
SINK WITH CALIFORNIA
by Youth Brigade:
Well I've been around the country
And I've met a lot of kids
Some kids are smart and some kids are dumb
But I don't pass judgement they're just having fun
Some kids get f*cked up and others refrain
But that's what makes the world so great
No one should be the same
The kids of the future
you can see it in their eyes
They must overcome nationality
If the World is to survive
And we'll sink with California
When it falls into the sea
Oi I'm not from England, Je Ne Suis pas de France
Ich bin nicht von Deutschland and I can't dance
Well I could say California it means nothing to me.
I despise nationality
Shouldn't say that you're from
north, south, east or west
It's humanity that is the best
Yo no soy Mexico, no Sano De Italia
That's all the languages we know
And actually we're from Canada
Yes we love to travel, but we love to see
That California border, forever and a day
We'll sink with California
When it falls into the sea
From the mountains, to the prairies
From the desert to the sea
I'd say California, it means nothing to me
I despise territoriality
I don't care if you're from north, south, east or west
live for humanity, forget the rest.
Yo I'm not from New York, I'm not from Boston
Y'all I ain't from Texas and I'm not patriotic
Cause the only patriotism that we really need
Is to sink with the world, with humanity and me
CONCLUSION
I know some of these ideas are highly controversial, and I expect some debates below, though I wasn't looking for them, just wanted an opportunity to get my thoughts out there to anyone willing to give them a read. Besides, I know some of you are looking for some entertainment so grab your popcorn.
MY CURRENT MISSION
My 2 year birthday is coming up. I was hoping to reach my 100th article by then, since I finished my 50th last year. My duties as MoC have kept me too busy for it however. I'll be stepping down at the end of the term, and focus on my party, the recruiting guild, and perhaps my newspaper.
-RA
Issue Song:
Youth Brigade - Sink with California
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou5OFEWj9Jg
"All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.” -François Fénelon
The Irish Radical issue #79
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Comments
This is all irrelevant when you consider the Canada, in RL and in eRepublik, is the best country that this world ever saw. *Breaks out into O Canada*
I love the article.
You have never been to Scotland, my friend.
This was a fun read.
Agreed, it is all territorial primitive thought process. Fanatical extremists are irrational and are a detriment to humanity and its freedom. Great article!
this should not be at eR , not at this time..
As non human alien from outer dimensions i find this article full of racist hate toward my kind.
Raven's open pride of being human makes as non human aliens to feel less human....
To my mind nationalism is the most destructive of those horsemen. It feeds all the others.
Very hard to overcome however .
FUCK YEAH SCOTLAND. FUCK ENGLAND YEAHHHH
Bibly say not to study other religions as well as not to pray to false gods. Bible I am afraid also say not to pray to false gods. If your trying to find correlations between religions there is an old book that list all this.
Certainly themes overlap the story of eden and the story of the khoi san and the first eland has many similarities and a similar end. It may have been that some people studying the bible adapted it and created "new " religions. It is also well known that the jewish faith originated during the same period.
my vote, although i am not totally agree with.
voted !!
Stepping down as MoC... makes me sad
🙁
You have done an excellent job there
Great Article keep writing
send into iraq that was not how this transpired do you mean afghanistan they went to afghanistan first to defeat taliban and find osama and a few years later attacked iraq due to WMD
that's the point. WMD that were never found. The UN wanted us to hold on until they found something, the Bush administration rushed things and used the public's hype leftover from Sep 11th to gain both the public and political majority.
Perhaps most sad of all, is that many didn't regret supporting the war until everyone could see the economic effect of the costs.
Very good ideas, treated with adequate level of both examples and generality for this public.
Personally, I don´t think there is a more powerful "horsemen", they are powerful in so far as we blindly believe these things. In any case, if I am gonna judge from what has happened more than from what the notions in theoretical form can do, I would say gender is the heavy duty one, followed by nationalism; by this I mean, I think they have been believed in very blindly and strongly by many people and used as reasons for their actions, specially destructive ones. Many times in history, a group of people chose to "twist" their religious system towards nationalism, making them more willing to question the supremeness of their religious view and shape it towards the roots of nationalistic ideas (and actions, such as invasion, economical take overs, etc).
But even more, I see in history the will to keep one gender on top of the others by all means available, using religion, nationalism, and race, along with many other terrible notions and actions to make this so always.
I wonder about this very often, because it is in the gender issue unlike the others, were you are actually talking about the totality of the human beings alive at any given point, where you have an almost half half ratio between men and women, unlike race, religion or nationalism, where a very clear minority claims all the stuff about superiority. Never were, lets say, whites that much more than blacks; in religion there have always been many, not merely a two dividing the world; nations, well, there are many many of those and of very different sizes in population, wealth and territory, as well as very different military.
But men and women, more or less, with slight variation of survival percentages, we have 50-50.
Yet the manly heterosexual man rides the horse of Gender since perhaps the beginning of Human behavior, and has inserted itself upon every single aspect of human behaviour through...
...out its History. Yet, it is the last horsemen we have paid attention to, and it has mostly been payed attention to by the sides that get the worst side of such structure. This always makes me think about the nature of these 4 dogmatic steps (or horsemen, to use your analogy a bit more) and how taking one, makes it much more easy to take up the others as well to some extent. And not being able to let go of one, what does that speak of us?
Super voted. Proud mammal of the human being type here 🙂
BTW it's very common for us to assert we are all are "HUMAN" but you see, everyone has an eye over their backs even having hands on each other's soldiers. I acknowledge the fact above all the three horsemen you mentioned are okay but the last one is debatable!! Without nationalism India would have been long back balkanised into 50's of states, i am not denying the fact that even now we are a part balkanised by misconceptions and stereotypes but, it would have been worst if we didnt. We respect Pakistan to the every bit but when they draw knives into our backs behead our soldiers and play football with their heads, everyone back here will definitely be agitated(nationalist, leftis any-ist or as you projected "HUMAN" will also get agitated). So it's not a universal phenomenon of denying patriotism and nationalism in each and every country. Sometimes nationalism is mistaken by the fundamentalist approach of the people. that mixture is unacceptable by a staunch nationalist. Nationalism at its purest best is always acceptable until someone adds (religion, race etc. to it)
As I said, nationalism is tricky. I used the example of the US's history to show how it can both help a nation, but inevitably harm the human race if armed with the right power. When you accuse Pakistan of such, does nationalism not play into their mentality as well? Sure race and religion do also, but if nationality were removed from the picture all together, there'd be no need for nationalism for anyone.
Nationality can never be removed brother and i am accusing no one but just quoted an example as you quoted the US. The leftist propaganda are purely utopian in nature. We have to live in "reality" and define our ways according to how "the things actually are" not how "actually they can be" so since removing nationality is a "never-ever-ever-never" phenomenon with fundamentals roaming around!! I think what you proposed is utopian!
What seems utopian now may not seem that way in the future.
"Without nationalism India would have been long back balkanised into 50's of states"
200 years later...
"Without globalism, Earth would have been long back balkanised into hundreds of countries".
🙂
I've read this a few times now, but just can't seem to find a short reply in place of an epic discussion.
So I'll pass.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, a good article.
For the record, I don't believe being proud of one's country, heritage, or culture as being a bad thing. I'm proud of all three yet I don't look down on any other people as lesser (I exclude England because they're not people 🙂 ). There are of course bad side effects to being proud of those things as you see with racists, but that's just like anything else in the world, right? Too much of one thing is bad and the like. Moderation in everything.
Whether it be a catastrophic event that nearly wipes us all out, a nation that conquers the rest, or discovery of intelligent life on another planet, the potential to eliminate nationalism and patriotism all together will present itself one day.
Scotland has had it rough as have many nations throughout history. Patriotism motivates and provides comradery in nations like that. The patriotism and nationalism haven't shown major problems as they have with empires of the past and today. But there are horrible people everywhere, and that doesn't of course exclude a nation's leadership. If you gave Scotland the power to play politics like the US can, and the military resources to lead a cold war, then make no mistake they would use that same nationalism which once helped the people, to influence/blind the people and justify horrible actions.
It can provide benefits, but in the end it only causes damages our species as a whole.
Boring.
Who gives a toss?