Do people in France have flags on their cars? Do they sell clothing with the flag for Zimbabwe everywhere? Do people dress as their country’s mascot for every day events?
Do people in France have flags on their cars? Do they sell clothing with the flag for Zimbabwe everywhere? Do people dress as their country’s mascot for every day events?
Don’t confuse patriotism with nationalism. Patriotism is love for one’s homeland, nationalism is a delusion of blood and soil.
Patriotism: “What can I to for my country?”
Nationalism: “What can my country do for me?”
I see nationalism more as “My country is better than your country”
Which generally comes with “I am more important than those forigners and hence should be treated better than them” which is just another form of “what’s in it for me”.
Certainly my experience from living in Brexit Britain is that the kind of people who couldn’t accept criticism of Britain were also the kind who though they were superior to foreigners because of being Britons and expected to be better treated than foreigners for it, and that wasn’t just in their own country but also for example when on vacations abroad.
Yeah, I’m a patriot, but I hate nationalists with a passion.
Although the former seems like it will inevitably slide into the latter.
We should aspire to be a good person in general first, and then decide if our nation is awesome or “we’re the baddies” after that.