An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
I take issue with the first panel.
To me, patriotism is “I’m going to work on my house because I love the people who live in it and I want them all to have the best house.”
If you start from the assumption that your country is the “best” that’s nationalism and straying too close to the roots of xenophobia.
Yeah, it’s maybe the greatest difference between Patriotism and Nationalism: the former is all about “I’ll work to make my house the best house” whilst the latter is about “Yield to me, as I am from the best house”.
Patriots want their country to be the best country, Nationalist want to extract gains from living in what they think is the best country.
You’ll notice that the only things Nationalists ever do for their country are things like “stopping others from coming here” or “celebrating the greatness of their country”, which aren’t at all about making the country better.
It could be the best for you.
You seem to be implying all people and countries are on a scale moving closer to some single ideal.
But it’s perfectly valid to think your house is the best and want it to be different to someone else’s house, who also thinks their house is the best.
You seem to be implying all people and countries are on a scale moving closer to some single ideal.
I mean that’s definitely how some people interpret it but at least for me, patriotism encompasses the idea that my country should be best for me and the people in it but that other people in other countries get to think the same thing about their country and work towards their own version of “best.”
But I’m not gonna argue that everyone does patriotism this way because that’s clearly not the case 🙃 plenty of “patriots” out there willing to wreck their own country in a war over bringing their own ideals to a different place.
Words are defined by how they’re used.
Nah.
Patriots would be there waving a giant flag saying we’re the best house ever, despite not actually being involved in building the house or having anything to do with the state of it outside of living in it.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
We need to build a shared culture so that we can work together.
My house will become the best house should be a message we all can get around. Otherwise, why should I work with you to build society?
If you don’t like shared work or shared culture to begin with, it’s a bit problematic in that your own political ideologies are destined to die. At the very minimum, your ideology must be self sustaining.
Why this house should be the best? Why make it a competition? Who cares about the house?
We care about the people living in the house. And about the people living in other houses too.
The house in this case is a metaphor for the politicians, laws, community, etc.
You want people to take pride and improve all that. You want friendly competition there. And part of it would be, “We are the best house because we help other houses improve”
It’s a stepping stone to, “We are a commune” ie “We all share this world and should take pride and improve it for everybody” - It’s easier to take pride in and improve your own home first so you get to the point of, “Others should get to share in this and we have so much, let’s help others make their homes as great as ours”
I may be dumb, but for me the metaphor is for the nation. Or the mention of patriotism against nationalism makes no sense.
And I don’t care about nations. They’re a tool used to divide people.
Yes it’s easier to improve my country than others’. But I don’t need pride for that.
Good luck building up a coalition of people who will cooperate with you.
And worse: good luck politically defeating those who are smart enough to use basic psychology to coordinate the masses. Its not evil to do so, its just practicality. We know how people act and how they think. Its not so hard to then use psychology and sociology to build up our own coalitions.
As Terry Pratchett wrote in The Hogfather : We tell little likes like Santa Clause because we’re training children to believe in the big lies like Truth and Justice. And only when we all believe in that stuff can it possibly work. “We’re the best country in the world” is part of that, its a little lie that helps smooth over problems and helps us work together. And in my experience, its effective at it.
You know, I’m not particularly intelligent. If I (and you apparently) understood that nations are a manipulation of the masses, everyone can. Thus we could create a coalition against nationalism and patriotism quite easily, but schools and medias are spreading their propaganda.
Except I’m not against manipulation of the masses. I’m tacitly for it, because if I don’t manipulate them, someone else will.
Leaving the masses to be manipulated by Trump (or other bad actors) is obviously a bad idea. If you haven’t noticed by the last 10 years of US Politics.
The reality is that 30%+ of the country (the current Trump voter base) accepts manipulation and embraces it. Its a huge cohort and a resource that can be turned to my side. Maybe not all of them, but its more than you or most people ever realized. And furthermore, anyone else who is intelligent and on my side about it will also join me and see that we have a winning strategy.
What’s your strategy exactly? You want to try to beat back human psychology one-person at a time and deprogram on a mass scale? Good luck with that. I’m not sure I’ve seen a successful argument that breaks through the psychological games being played out here.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
That’s not true, Bernie Sanders campaign had a wonderfully wholesome and inclusive version of patriotism which they used to great effect:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nwRiuh1Cug
…and he also talks about his nationalism when deriding the Koch brothers:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
So like most things it depends on when AND HOW they’re used.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
Not true. Patriotism is wanting and seeking the best for your country. Because our society relies on those physical divides, patriotism would actually improve society. Nationalism is deciding that whatever your country is doing already is the best simply by virtue of self-identification. There is no desire for improvement outside of an individual perception so it, functionally, can never offer any improvement for society.
One is potentially beneficial. The other is cancerous.
Strange, nationalists in Europe have a lot of ideas about how to change their various countries.
Only in that they want to move it to a more extreme version of what they already perceive it to be. They are not looking to change it based on any meaningful measure. Nationalists are almost always conservatives.
That’s true.
I was reading a nutter manifesto from the Heritage Party in the UK earlier… It is a hodgepodge of animal rights laws that are a mix of actual animal rights and outlawing Halal and Kosher slaughter, encouraging free markets and nationalising railways and utilities, being free speech and personal freedom but LGBTQ people can’t have families or be spoken about, want to invest in the military and especially navy but also apparently are anti-war and want to cease support for Ukraine.
One is cancerous, the other is a benign tumor (for now).
How? That statement means nothing unless you explain it.
Patriotism, as long as it stays just that, is probably not going to do much damage. It’s just kind of there and annoying, but not directly dangerous. But it is still a ridiculous concept to be proud of the arbitrarily drawn lines within which you were born, and being loyal to them simply because you were born there. That doesn’t mean you can’t like your country and want it to prosper. But emotional attachment to and positive attitudes towards a nation by default is cringe at best. Praise a country if it does something good and critisize it if it fucks up. But why would you give one country special treatment there? And patriotism is never far from being exploited and turned into nationalism at the slightest inconvenience. Sometimes, it doesn’t even take an inconvenience, as evidenced by football right now.
What in the fuck are you on about?
It’s not pride in the lines drawn, it’s pride in the positive things that your community does on a national scale. That’s the point. You take the good things that you see elsewhere and you decide that you want to emulate that.
Ok so let’s entertain the opposite of patriotism and talk about self distane what is going to drive you to fix the crumbling rotting foundation or leaky roof because who cares if this crummy house rots and collapses on me if you don’t care about your county then you won’t have the drive to maintain it sure some might but those people who don’t need motivation to do things are rare and far between if the world is hopeless then what hope is there of fixing it
Is pride the only reason you take care of your health?
Because the motivation to not live in a shit place should be that you wouldn’t want to be living in a shit place, not because you think it’s great.
People with no or low self-worth are way more likely to neglect their health than those with high self-worth. Pride is a huge motivator for taking care of your health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194072/
The levels of obesity and diabetes among the Pima Indians of Arizona have long been recognised to be high. A small study tested the efficacy of lifestyle interventions. Two groups were identified. The Pima action group had a familiar mix of interventions on nutrition and physical activity. The Pima pride group looked remarkably like a control group for a health education trial—they received printed leaflets about activity and nutrition—but in addition they had regular discussions with local leaders on Pima culture and history. At the end of 12 months, much was going in the wrong direction for the action group, but the pride group had either less deterioration of risk factors or improvements. Compared with the action group the pride group looked favourable on weight, waist circumference, and blood glucose and insulin levels two hours after a glucose load.3 A tentative conclusion was that increasing pride in their identity had a more favourable impact on health behaviours and risk than focusing on how to change diet and exercise.
People often don’t take care of things they aren’t proud of. It doesn’t matter if it’s clearly in their best interest to.
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Yup. The main difference between a patriot and a nationalist - or fascist - is a few years and an opportunity.
Last time I checked, we were able to deploy the Office of Censorship to censor US Postal Mail. Conscript Disney and Loony Tunes to build up a massive database of wartime propaganda. Use it to influence the entirety of the US Civilians. Use it to drum up support for War Bonds to help expand the US Debt to pay for the war, raise taxes to 90% on the highest end and build a better country while defeating both Fascism and Communism.
We, as a country, decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. And not only that, we also got rid of these dangerous emergency powers (of explicit Censorship / War Information / Propaganda) before we corrupted our society into an irreversible state.
And therein lies the problem with people who just yell “fascism” whenever they disagree with someone. Yall obviously don’t know the history of this country.
Why do you assume op is an american? Not everything is about, or from, or related to, or on reference to, your failed state lol
If you’re not American then we don’t have any shared political system for which we can improve America. And therefore we have no serious system to help each other out.
None of this works unless we’re working to build the same thing or same concept.
Again, why are you even talking about america? I certainly am not, and the op is just a generalized patriotism vs nationalism comic. The above commenter you replied to originally makes no indication they are referring to america either.
I get it, your system failing is a hot topic for you, but outside your bubble nobody knows or really cares about the inner workings of your government, beyond which senile capitalist you eventually elect to change nothing for the better.
Again, why are you even talking about america?
Because this is a topic about Patriotism and who is actually going to help my country. And building a culture that encourages people to help my country.
but outside your bubble
I’m happy with “Americans” being my bubble. I honestly don’t need to care about others, and as you point out there’s plenty enough to worry about if we keep it to Americans alone.
SMBC-comics is obviously itself an American comic strip as well (A PH.D who lives in USA in any case), so you’re coming over here to talk about an American comic, talking about American issues that’s bringing up American political discussion and… like shitting on it? Okay, no one asked you to come over.
Now my question to you is: what are you doing in this topic? Are you seriously trying to discourage me from improving the country where I live? Or are you trying to say your country is better or something? I don’t even know what your perspective is.
I know you skimp on your education system, but do you not understand my words? Patriotism doesnt automatically mean america. This isnt about who or what or how your country can avoid going full masks off fascism, this is a semi serious comparison between nationalism and patriotism in a comic format.
And if you want to talk to Americans about american problems I suggest a less international community dedicated to such musings, instead of self centeredly derailing a random, at best tangentially related comment section.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
State-level patriotism also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
And there is no valid reason to have some special relation to your country. It is natural to feel ties with the place you were born or the place you spent a lot of time in, this is human psychology, but your country is nothing but a piece of land that was marked by somebody as belonging to some virtual entity.
We should ditch state-level patriotism as a concept and treat local-level patriotism as a natural bias. We should strive to help people of all places and origins, and come together as one.
Instead of local-level should it not be headed towards planet-level?
Our obsession with owning land and borders will be the death of us all.
Like, without hyperbole, if we all die, it will be because of our attachment to the concept of “owning land” and having to draw imaginary lines across ground and rock and water to signify who owns what.
But when you step back and really think about it, it makes zero sense if you actually care about an equitable world where people aren’t hurting each other. It makes zero sense from a cosmic perspective, as this is a rock flying around a star, it has been here longer than us and will outlast us to a degree that our presence here, no matter what we do, will be a brief blip in cosmic time. We have no legacy, no real connection to the dirt below us other than how it gave us life. And yet claim ownership over it?
It makes no sense from a material perspective either, all borders do is reduce the flow of goods and services, creates artificial limits on who can go where creating “pressure zones” that eventually explode over and become migration disasters, and of course the people who pretend to rule these patches of dirt and rock and water and will send millions of people to death to preserve this roleplay. And we all cheer and defend this concept with all our heart.
Make it make sense.
Moreover, the entire concept of ownership is really just “you’ll face violence from other people if you try to take that away, one way or another”. That’s it.
Universe doesn’t care who owns what, those are just objects in space.
Sometimes this concept is helpful; you probably want the police to step in if someone breaks into your house (universe couldn’t care less). Sometimes it’s extremely dangerous, like when country leaders threaten others with nuclear war.
In either case, we should seriously revamp our relationships with land and property - that is for certain. Current ways are not sustainable and may lead to a disaster.
At the very least, yes.
Don’t worry, if we ever become an interplanetary species, we’ll do the exact same fucking thing
Which will be the time to ditch planetary-level patriotism as well.
For now, it’s good enough.
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also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.
I don’t think we need to do any division between people.
Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.
patriotism is a very personal thing, by the very definition of it. You simply cannot apply it outside of yourself. If you are outwardly patriotic. You have already fucked up.
I would argue there is a valid reason to have some form of special relation to your country, your country is simply, not any other existing country. If you live in estonia, you have a fully digital government. If you live in america you have one of the foundational democratic governments of modern society, as well as a particular cultural history (though turbulent, rather remarkable) as well as a particularly unusual geography and land usage. If you live in europe, you live in a moderately to high density populated area, that is highly socialized, and cooperative. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The fundamental problem here is thinking that europe is worse than america, simply because it’s different. What you’re applying here is a soviet level utilitarian “collective” identity.
Though i agree with the state level patriotism, that’s fucking weird, stop doing that.
It is one thing to acknowledge the positives of a place you’re in, and other to be proud of some arbitrary landmass.
Europe is not worse than America, both have their upsides and downsides. I can say that as a Russian, and I also acknowledge the positives and negatives of living in Russia in general and my city in particular. All are good at something, and bad at something else.
At the same time, I do not want to leave my city. I have people here that I’m warmly related to and I feel safe and comfortable here; I know the city, know its unwritten rules, I feel myself at home. There are places in here I intimately know and adore. Moving cities would be a major pain for me, and at first I wouldn’t feel at my place; moving countries is straight up insane for me.
But I know this is because I’m used to the place and know it deeply, and feel comfy with that arrangement; if I would leave, I would feel nostalgic of times I’ve spent here, and I would always react more to any events that happen here, even when I leave. This is all my bias, and it is something we all have. I guess this is the core of local-level patriotism.
But it doesn’t make me hold special feelings towards the entirety of Russia. I have no ties with Siberia, to which I’ve never been, and to me it would be more foreign than, say, forests of Finland, which are way closer to what I see in my area and are more intimately familiar. Kamchatka is exotic to me, not familiar and warm. And I fail to understand why it should be different, other than for the will of the people in power who want to create some special Russian identity for me to be proud of.
Europe is not worse than America, both have their upsides and downsides. I can say that as a Russian, and I also acknowledge the positives and negatives of living in Russia in general and my city in particular. All are good at something, and bad at something else.
are their upsides to living in russia? Seems like right now wouldn’t be a particularly good time. Really the only thing i can think of off the top of my head is piracy, and maybe some more lax internet rules. But that’s about it.
Your post pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter in completion.
Yes, piracy and lackluster Internet regulation is one particularly good thing.
Also, costs are generally low, which greatly offsets the lower revenue. Russia is the fourth economy by GDP by purchasing power parity, so it’s not to be underestimated.
Fuel, food, electricity and water, and a lot of other stuff is WAY cheaper than in Europe. Some Europeans living near the border drive to Russia to this day to get some goods for cheap and also fuel their cars.
Russia has lush forests, a lot of water, and amazing nature. It does have polluted cities, but for the most of it, air quality is high.
Most people here have their own countryside summer home, which serves as a wonderful retreat.
Social security is not amazing, but good enough; also, healthcare is greatly improving in the last years, despite some of the sanctions (generally though, medical goods are allowed to enter Russia from everywhere)
On the flip side, the country is obviously ruled by a bloodthirsty maniac that crushes descent, sanctions lead to unavailability of many products and services, I cannot go to Finland to see my brother, and economy is screeching under the load of a war machine that kills our fellows (and Ukrainians were always seen from Russia as rogue, but beloved members of the Eastern Slavic family) for no valid reason.
Also, the economic consequences of war lead to all sorts of weird consequences; for example, high key interest rate meant to keep money inside results to completely crazy loan conditions, like mortgages with 19% APR - you are literally supposed to pay one fifth of a price for an accommodation AS INTEREST EVERY YEAR. Before war, it was in the 5-7% range. As such, house owning is not an option at all. Also, markets are highly volatile, and it is hard to save any money.
huh, interesting, rather informative. Appreciate the insight.
I suppose if you’re somehow making money from western economies it’s probably a pretty good gig. Are the domestic wages any decent? I’ve heard russia has issues with braindrain, for more educated fields, since pay and living standards are often higher outside of russia. Though i’ve never looked into it.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens economically as the war continues, or as it ends.
Yes, it is profitable to work in Western economies, but current political situation often makes it outright impossible, and back in the days when it was possible it wasn’t super common - mostly due to language barrier (most Russians are not fluent in any foreign language, including English) and the culture that pressures people to stay in. Phrases like “you’re good where you’re born” are common sayings here.
High-profile specialists, though, are the first to leave for sure, in search of higher wages, a safer/better place to be, etc. etc.
Also now that a lot of male population was under the threat of mobilization, a lot of young people have fled the country to where they could, taking their families with them.
There was a thing with freelance work on international platforms that brought good money without having to leave the country, but soon after freelance economy started truly booming, Russia started the war which ended up in main payment channels being closed - and barely anyone outside IT specialists offers serious freelance work paid in crypto or by other means.
Yes, it is profitable to work in Western economies, but current political situation often makes it outright impossible, and back in the days when it was possible it wasn’t super common - mostly due to language barrier (most Russians are not fluent in any foreign language, including English) and the culture that pressures people to stay in. Phrases like “you’re good where you’re born” are common sayings here.
what about online? Say game dev or something. I believe tarkov is russian based no? Though they have an HQ in the UK i think, for monetary purposes.
There was a thing with freelance work on international platforms that brought good money without having to leave the country, but soon after freelance economy started truly booming, Russia started the war which ended up in main payment channels being closed - and barely anyone outside IT specialists offers serious freelance work paid in crypto or by other means.
yeah, that sounds about right.
There’s no “special” reason to view the adults you grew up with as better or worse caretakers. Statistically, it’s likely they’re equivalent to many others.
Still, this over application of logic refuses to let us be enthusiastic about anything unless there’s a scientifically documented reason towards it. It’s nice to have reasons to adore something, even if that thing is a country - but the comic is making the point that you should still want to find flaws in and improve that thing.
Sure! I just think that this particular flavor of enthusiasm often serves as a slippery slope towards nationalism, and is often intended that way.
Which is why I see it as a rather toxic kind of mentality. There are many things to be enthusiastic about - people’s unity, new discoveries and achievements, or simply your cat coming for hugs.
None of them have terrible potential outcomes.
Ah, a classic false dichotomy.
You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient.”
Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.
- Mark Twain, “A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court”
Conservative’s patriotism is mostly virtue signaling in my experience.
I am the queen of France (drums start) (wavy arm dance begin)
But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile. - Patrick O’Brien
What a dumbass take.
The difference is much simpler. Patriotism for internal conflicts, nationalism for external conflicts. Both for manufactured Boogeymen fueled by malicious propaganda.
imo, actual patriotism would be more like “I want to make my house as good as I can.”
You don’t have to think your country is the best to be patriotic with respect to that country.
Nah, it’s very subjective. Idealistically patriotism is more like “I want to make the common house everyone on the street lives in more pleasant to live in for everyone.”
Realistically it’s more like “I want to make my house how I think it should be better. Why doesn’t everyone else do the same?”
Each individual has their own idea about what’s the patriotic thing to do, even if that ends up to be the wrong thing in someone else’s view. That’s why I say it’s about internal conflicts. Your patriotism and your neighbor’s can come at odds with each other in various points. Neither of you might be wrong, but you’ll still have to pick something that goes against those beliefs eventually. Better for you, worse for someone else, but pat oneself on the back with the excuse “the good of the many”.
Talk about dumbass takes…
I did talk. You didn’t. This comment of yours… Zero substance. Not even dumb, just empty.
Chauvinism ≠ nationalism
Ireland and quebec are nationalist, they want to become independent from englad. Its about sovereignty.
Chauvinism is fanatical adoration of a person, a group or a belief like the maga side of the republican.
How many languages outside of English even have a word for patriotism?
Patriotism and Nationalism are basically the same thing. The distinction is nonsensical, especially in this context.
good ol’ Lemmy’s lack of nuance.
Also, if you vote, you are ethnically tied to, and guilty of, every decision and moral misstep of that politician until the end of time.
You’ll have to explain, since in the comic the main premise of both Nationalism and Patriotism is that “this house is mine ergo it is the best”.
(Also historically the distinction would be that Nationalism is about establishing an ethno-state, while Patriotism is the basically-unconditional loving of your state, be it ethno or otherwise.)
so, you got the start, where the similarities were laid out, but you skipped the title and then the rest where the distinction - the differences - were laid out.
you want me to explain the entire thing to you. word by word. panel by panel. 🤦♂️ ffs. You’re the sort of person who wears velcro shoes, but not by choice.
Or, I’ll you’ll bear with me, I reject the arbitrary and contrived difference the comic puts forwards.
You’ll surely grant that in real life there is a lot of co-morbidity between the two conditions - even if you personally might not agree that the improvements to the house that the people you label as Nationalist would try to implement. Which is the Patriot’s quality.
no.
I would say patriotism is when you love the ideas a nation is built on and stands for, while nationalism is when you love the people and history of a nation.
As a european it’s very hard to love the former, since we’ve been here for more than a thousand years meaning whatever ideas our forefathers might have had in mind are rightfully gone now. However over this time we developed our own culture and became a nation of people which we can love instead.
Nationalism doesn’t have to be toxic as it’s often depicted, if someone belives their nation is “better” that’s called chauvinism. Nationalism is just when you feel your nation is special for you at least and that makes you want to better it.
if you want to make up new definitions for your own language that is similar to, but not quite like English, that’s up to you.
I don’t think that your differentiazion between patriotism and nationalism is correct. Nationalism always began with the invention of nations through national movements. The nation building in europe began in the 18th century, not a thousand years ago. Nationalism always refers to the invented history of a nation (“a thousand years ago”), while patriotism can refer to the political system or the constitutional documents.
I think both are awful because there is a really fine line to chauvinism. The positive view of oneselfes too often comes with the devaluation of others.
Ironic if P had a bit more of N he wouldn’t be absorbed that easy
Can we not do politics? I generally like the comics sub, but my exposure to politics on lemmy, social media, wherever is at such all time peak nonsensical levels that I just block all politic related subs, and would like this not to be one of them.
That’s a fair point. I can try to avoid politics in this community in the future.
As for this post, I’ll defer to the community mod to either leave it up or take it down. No hard feelings from me either way.
Anybody know if there’s a political cartoons community? Then I can subscribe to both.
Also patriotism: This house sucks, and it’s because of these fucking immigrants
Are you voting Republican or Libertarian?
![An Important Distinction [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1476886340-20161019.png){kind=link}