Do you love your country ?

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TomBecker
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Do you love your country ?

Postby TomBecker » 2014-09-30, 14:46

Are you proud of your country and culture ?

I am an Israeli so obviously I despise my country and wish I was born somewhere else . I am ashamed of being born here . I feel that everyone who was born in Israel is worthless because of Israel's problematic image and genocidal policies.

All I do is admiring other nations and their peoples because I know they don't have the same problems as I do . I love Canada , Germany , Australia, France , Norway , South Korea and Slovenia . I always imagine how beautiful life could be if I was born in any of those countries and especially Germany , Canada and Australia. Israel is just a lame excuse for a country. Why would anyone love an individual who represents a country that occupies and kills Palestinians ? Impossible .

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linguoboy
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby linguoboy » 2014-09-30, 14:54

TomBecker wrote:Why would anyone love an individual who represents a country that occupies and kills Palestinians?

Because they're intelligent enough to distinguish between a private individual and the actions of the government of the country where they live?

I was living in Germany during the First Gulf War and got some criticism for being an American. One of my fellow expats told me his standard rejoinder was, "Did you vote for Kohl?" Naturally, none of them had any more than we'd voted for Bush. That forced them to think about the conflation they were making.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby md0 » 2014-09-30, 15:41

Collective responsibility is bullshit. There's a line between actively or passively supporting an institution of oppression (in this case, nationalism) and of just living under it.

I do not know if there's even a point in answering the question in the tile, I feel like you wanted to vent about the disgusting tendency to conflate Israelis and/or Jews with the State of Israel.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby basica » 2014-09-30, 23:00

I think patriotism is a silly thing. "This country is awesome because I was born here". Yeah, I dunno about that. I don't love the country I am born in nor do I love the country my parents are born in. I can appreciate various things about them, but that's the extent of it.

As for individual responsibility for government actions, I don't think it's a fair thing to do. Sure there are some people that support what their government does and there are some people that don't. No point in judging them all the same. linguoboy points out a situation that's common. Using the example of Americans once again, more liberal minded individuals tend to hate Americans here and unless the American prostrate themself and shows complete and utter disdain for their country's actions, they will be met with a lot of anger. For me, I don't really see the need to hold them or others to account but YMMV.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Lazar Taxon » 2014-09-30, 23:35

I love my country in a certain sense, but I'd call it humanism more than patriotism. I find that I have an affection for all countries as I learn about them.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby TeneReef » 2014-10-01, 1:27

I don't like Croatia.
I like India :gay:
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby ling » 2014-10-01, 4:11

There are things I love about my country, and other things I don't love. I happen to like my country of origin (the US) and my adopted country (Taiwan) despite their glaring flaws.

But I think patriotism (which these days tends to be interpreted as "my country is the greatest in the world" type nationalism) is a steaming load of BS.

In my opinion, real patriotism means working to preserve the good things about your country and fix the bad things. But in the US, the word has been poisoned by flag-waving, bible-thumping Republican nutcases.
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Lada
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Lada » 2014-10-01, 15:11

David Duchovny says that there're many things to be proud of in Russia, especially if you promote Russian beer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6XI8i_69xA

IMHO Patriotism is not about being proud of, but about loving. You love your mother even if you are not proud of her, even if she's alcoholic, or something else not really appreciated by the society. You still love her, patriotism is the same thing. You just love your country whatever it is and try to make it better and never stop. So I love my country.

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-10-01, 15:36

IMHO Patriotism is not about being proud of, but about loving. You love your mother even if you are not proud of her, even if she's alcoholic, or something else not really appreciated by the society. You still love her, patriotism is the same thing. You just love your country whatever it is and try to make it better and never stop. So I love my country
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Lada
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Lada » 2014-10-01, 18:21

I meant your physical mother, not Mother Russia.

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-10-02, 4:34

Lada wrote:I meant your physical mother, not Mother Russia.
Please leave my mother's alcoholism out of this.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Sol Invictus » 2014-10-02, 12:14

Yes.

I wouldn't love alcoholic mother.

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Varislintu » 2014-10-02, 12:44

I don't know really what patriotism is supposed to be.

But as for me, I try to approach this from a sort of practical point-of-view. There are many things that have been organised well or favourably (towards me) in my country. I can certainly be thankful and happy about those things. At the same time, I know that they were usually the result of the action of a relatively tiny fraction of people from my country. So in a way, the credit for it belongs to those people and their vision, not necessarily to an entire country. Especially not to an abstract idea of a country.

On a wholly different but still perhaps more emotionally stirring level, there is also the natural landscape of the country or part of country that you grew up in. To that, I think, one can feel irrationally and impractically attached. Not everyone does, but I think I do. I'm attached to the particular plants and bugs and weather-patterns of this area, because I grew up in it.

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2014-10-02, 19:20

I actually like Lada's definition. I love the Netherlands (but Belgium even more) but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm proud of it or that I think it's a perfect country.
I wouldn't want to live somewhere else. I don't even want to live in Belgium because it would probably ruin my romantic idea of it.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-10-02, 20:37

I don't think I've ever known how to answer this question. There are an awful lot of things about this country that I don't like. I mean, for one thing, it's one of the largest countries in the world, yet the majority of the population seems boringly homogeneous (and eager to keep it that way :roll:). But there are some things I do like. Like immigrants. Lots and lots of immigrants. Which means more opportunities to practice languages IRL. :twisted: :lol:

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby linguoboy » 2014-10-02, 20:57

The President came to speak at a local business school today and the speech was simulcast where I work, so I went to watch it with my colleagues. Despite my cynicism (although he tried to suggest otherwise, it was very clearly a campaign speech), I actually found myself getting a little choked up at some of his descriptions of American values. I would like to think that my country stands for some pretty awesome things (like progress, equality, personal liberty, and other great liberal virtues), but its actions speak otherwise.

A country is simply too abstract. There are definitely many people in the USA who believe in lofty ideals and try to act in accordance with them. But there are as many or more who are motivated overwhelmingly by self-interest. And even when they start out idealistic, elites naturally come to protect their own interests at the expense of all others. (When this happens to our national politicians, we call it the "Beltway Effect" after the highway which surrounds the District of Columbia.)

vijayjohn wrote:I mean, for one thing, it's one of the largest countries in the world, yet the majority of the population seems boringly homogeneous

There was a great quote from Edward Said I'd like to track down about how coming to study in the USA after living in Palestine was the equivalent of arriving in a linguistic desert. To be fair, though, there are a lot of countries I used to consider boringly homogeneous (Mexico, for instance) but which, upon closer examination, turn out to be anything but. I've since come to the conclusion that if I feel that way about someplace, it says more about my own ignorance of it than its actual characteristics.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-10-02, 21:16

linguoboy wrote:To be fair, though, there are a lot of countries I used to consider boringly homogeneous (Mexico, for instance) but which, upon closer examination, turn out to be anything but. I've since come to the conclusion that if I feel that way about someplace, it says more about my own ignorance of it than its actual characteristics.

Sure. I just haven't seen any convincing evidence that it's not yet. I mean, fortunately, there are still a bunch of languages indigenous to this country that are not quite dead yet (and of course the aforementioned immigrants :P), plus ASL and Martha's Vineyard Sign Language. But I still haven't seen any evidence that the majority is all that diverse. Idk, I guess I'll just have to keep looking. :)

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby linguoboy » 2014-10-02, 21:24

vijayjohn wrote:But I still haven't seen any evidence that the majority is all that diverse. Idk, I guess I'll just have to keep looking. :)

Maybe not linguistically diverse, but diversity has many forms. Do you have any idea how many different religious sects and philosophical movements exist in the USA? I literally cannot conceive of how most of my fellow Americans think the way they do.
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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-10-02, 23:20

True, but I'm most intrigued about the linguistic diversity :lol:

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Re: Do you love your country ?

Postby Aurinĭa » 2014-10-03, 16:24

Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:I don't even want to live in Belgium because it would probably ruin my romantic idea of it.
Very good idea. :P Just come to visit sometimes. ;)


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