> Those that dislike patriotism so much should provide the ultimate proof of their beliefs and renounce their citizenship.
It’s quite clear you are not referring to single individual here but instead calling out a group and [sarcastically] suggesting they take some action. If including myself in a mentioned group is “making it about myself” and odd, I’m fine with that.
Having positive feelings towards one's country is a pretty normal, pretty emotionally healthy thing. Their absence indicates some internal or external conflict or trauma.
Individuals which are experiencing these conflicts should not condemn patriotism in sweeping generalizations. Some countries are quite fine, in spite of a chequered past and being proud of one's country can be a nice feeling.
> Having positive feelings towards one's country is a pretty normal, pretty emotionally healthy thing. Their absence indicates some internal or external conflict or trauma.
That is pub psychology at its most patronising, its most flawed, and its most self-serving.
For those of us not so indoctrinated, expressing feelings for any inanimate or noncorporeal object sounds pathological and fetishistic. Indoctrinating children into the same through repetition of a daily mantra is indistinguishable from religion. If nations were an object capable of returning your affection, the routine exploitation, injustice, violence, mismanagement and desecration of trust would make it a situation to be urgently extracted from.
Those who haven't experienced any of those things first-hand, including from the systems and institutions of nations that make the cosmically ironic claim to be the "good guys", are astonishingly, overwhelmingly, revoltingly privileged - and only a small fraction of humanity.
To sum up: patriotism is an abusive relationship with a memetic virus.
I don't think I said that the feelings have to be expressed, but they're there nevertheless. You never have positive feelings towards objects? For example when you see a beautiful sunset, or enjoy a great tool that allows you to easily get your job done? That would be very unusual... the human internal universe is immerse in feelings, we even humanize objects sometimes.
Those positive feelings are not addressed to the "nation" itself though, they're addressed to the group of people to which a person feels like they belong to, it's addressed to the culture and traditions which one feels connected to and which they enjoy with other people. Everywhere I go I see people treating their fellow citizens differently and more affectionately compared to foreigners.
I don't salute a beautiful sunset, and I don't require my children to pledge allegiance to the sun; nor would I be so crass, flippant, or despotic as to suggest - as you already did with citizenship - that someone declining to offer their loyalty to the sun deserves to be denied warmth.
Tossing around false equivalences doesn't make patriotism a sunny day.
> Everywhere I go I see people treating their fellow citizens differently and more affectionately compared to foreigners
...
If I ever need to reference a monument to unconscious bias, and to the staggering lack of self-awareness that "patriots" embody, and for a prima facie example of how structural discrimination is perpetuated even in 2020, this'll be it.
You seem to be hanging on to the "pledge of alliance" discussion with the other guy which wisely decided to cut their losses and stop responding :) You do realise you're talking to somebody else now, right?
Somebody which merely limited themselves to discussing patriotism, which doesn't require pledges. In fact I disagree with such behavior, especially when kids are required to recite them. Such things are typically encountered in undemocratic countries and they are a form of manipulation and control.
Patriotism neither requires such things, nor does it mean that those who recite such pledges are patriotic. As I've mentioned before, patriotism for me indicates positive feelings towards one's country.
Alas, I'm generally unwilling to concede retrospective attempts to move goalposts.
I don't consider this exchange to be a dialogue. Regarding the scope of audience and participation, I see remarks from six participants. I'm aware of adjacent threads addressing related topics and angles. We have undisclosed N participants that've been variously upvoting, downvoting, flagging, and vouching comments, leaving many flagged or dead (i.e. collapsed to casual visitors).
It seems to me there is no common ground on the matter between you and I, not even agreement of the parameters of discussion. A collapsed subthread whose index topic has naturally decayed from the front page lacks any prospect of additional voices, and with no opportunity I can perceive for the Hegelian dialectic to resolve otherwise, I shall break off here, and wish you (and any unseen readers that have stoically endured thus far) a good day.
But please do carry on reaping and continuing things. :)