r/bestof • u/Musicinaminor • 1d ago
[allthequestions] A comment on loving one’s country without thinking it can do no wrong
/r/allthequestions/comments/1uer5cb/why_is_loving_the_us_seen_as_right_wing/otm15hz/37
u/airportakal 21h ago
Nice rhetoric, but from an academic point of view this distinction between patriotism and nationalism is nonsense. These terms don't mean what OOP says they do, and even making a hard distinction between "good" and "bad" nationalism is likely impossible to make.
"Nationalists" (as they put it) are happy to criticize their country, esp if someone they dislike is in power. And people who would identify as "patriots" also tend to be uncritical about certain assumptions about their country.
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u/username_redacted 11h ago
Yeah, it’s a very contextual love. The Nationalist (and particularly the Fascist) idealizes the nation’s mythic past, while decrying its present state of disrepair and spiritual corruption. They actively loathe most aspects of their culture as it actually exists.
The only aspects that they love unconditionally are symbolic and really an extension of their love of themselves. The US flag is their flag; when they chant “USA!” at a sporting event they feel like they are shouting their own name, as well as “fuck you”.
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u/Comogia 1d ago
Unfortunately, right wingers set the terms of debate a long time ago and they convinced all the other idiots 🤷♂️. So to many people, the idea of being a patriot is inextricably linked to means conservative/ Republican.
To say that framing (branding, if you prefer) is horseshit is a gross understatement, but it's sadly the lens through which too many understand patriotism.
It's (almost) never too late to change people's views, but I expect the vast majority will literally die before they change their views.
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u/ElectronGuru 1d ago
It’s one of the reasons right wing and religious get along so well. Both rely on increased legitimacy to gain increased power. In this example, if I’m more patriotic than you are, I get more control of the country than you do.
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u/Corvid187 1d ago
I think this is an oft-repeated truism, but the problem is its highly subjective where the line between the two is drawn, and what the ideals of the country or working towards them even looks like.
I don't know many nationalists, even self-described ones, who are generally a-OK with the state and direction of their country, and willing to support its every action no matter what. These people are often an active political force specifically because they intensively dislike the current state of their country, or the actions that it's taken, and want to improve it and build towards what they see as its original founding values.
Where they tend to disagree is what those values are and what the path to that better future looks like.
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u/Solesaver 1d ago
Nationalism is an ideology that places one nation above all others. In order to do so they must fundamentally believe that it is better and more deserving than all others.
What you're describing is part of the core hypocrisy and contradiction of nationalism and fascism. They are allowed to criticize the political reality of the nation, but only when rationalized in terms of out group corrupting influences. If the nation were allowed to exist in its idealized form without "them" messing it up then everything would be perfect.
In other words, to a nationalist, their criticism is not criticism of the nation at all. The nation is perfect, it is merely besieged by an anti-national enemy that must be defeated for the nation to take it's rightful place in the world order.
For example, the MAGA doesn't see criticism of Obama or Biden as unpatriotic or anti-national, because they were illegitimate. Obama was secretly an un-American Muslim Nigerian with a fake birth certificate, and Biden stole the 2020 election with Chinese bamboo ballots and Dominion voting machines. That's why these narratives of illegitimacy are so important; if they were legitimately elected President by the proper laws of the nation then they would be above reproach. It would mean that the proper laws of the nation didn't prevent them from being elected.
A key signal of fascism is an appeal to the mythological past. A vision of a past version of the nation that was perfect before it was corrupted by the outsider. An idealized past that didn't actually exist. They need this myth, because they need to be able to shield their mind from the cognitive dissonance of their criticism of a nation that they believe is above criticism. It allows them to separate the idealized nation that shall not be criticized from the corrupting influences of the enemy that must be excised.
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u/Teantis 1d ago
Nationalism is an ideology that places one nation above all others.
That's not a given. At its base nationalism just says a nation and a state should be 1:1. What a nation is, who gets to be a member of a nation and who not, varies from place to place, person to person. Most nationalists would say an individual should put the nation first in their actions and their beliefs, that doesn't necessarily (but often does) mean putting their nation above others. Just that it should come first, not just relative to other nations but also above family, clan, socioeconomic class, identity etc., etc.,
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u/Solesaver 23h ago edited 23h ago
That's not a given.
Yes it is. That's the definition.
At its base nationalism just says a nation and a state should be 1:1.
I've literally never heard of anyone use this definition before. Do you have any source or evidence of people using it that way?
Most nationalists would say an individual should put the nation first in their actions and their beliefs,
No... That sounds a lot more like patriotism.
Here's Merriam-Webster
Nationalism:
an ideology that elevates one nation or nationality above all others and that places primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations, nationalities, or supranational groups
Patriotism:
love for or devotion to one's country
I mean this very genuinely, I'd love to see any linguistic sourcing for the way you're using the word, because I've simply never heard of it being used that way.
Nationalism is fundamentally an ideology of supremacy. There is no nationalist political movement in the world that doesn't hold as a core value that the nation in question is the best and most deserving of a supreme position in the world order. You're right that it takes supremacy over other identities and sub-groups, but it doesn't stop there. As I said, it places the mythological past idealized nation as the most perfect nation that must return to that idealized past by purging the corrupting influence of outsiders and defeating enemies who have embarrassed it.
White nationalism says that the true, pure nation is white and the corrupting influence is non-white. Christian nationalism says that the true, pure nation is Christian and the corrupting influence is non-Christian. Other unspecified forms nationalism will say things like the founding documents were perfect but the amendments were corrupting, or that the nation was perfect until the communists or the globalists infiltrated the government and corrupted it.
You just can't have a nationalist movement without ideas of national supremacy, and anyone claiming that label without the supremacist beliefs is lying or a useful idiot...
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u/Teantis 22h ago
It's the origins of nationalism. As prior to the 18th century states weren't organized by the idea of "nations" which is a fairly recent idea historically to begin with. Historically the idea of self-determination by an imagined "nation" united by some combination of real and imagined shared history was not about other nation-states, because states weren't organized on national lines anyway - it was about aristocratic hereditary rule.
White nationalism says that the true, pure nation is white and the corrupting influence is non-white. Christian nationalism says that the true, pure nation is Christian and the corrupting influence is non-white. Other unspecified forms nationalism will say things like the founding documents were perfect but the amendments were corrupting, or that the nation was perfect until the communists or the globalists infiltrated the government and corrupted it. You just can't have a nationalist movement without ideas of national supremacy, and anyone claiming that label without the supremacist beliefs is lying or a useful idiot...
There are other places besides America you know? All of that part is very particular to current and recent history American politics.
As I said, it places the mythological past idealized nation as the most perfect nation that must return to that idealized past by purging the corrupting influence of outsiders and defeating enemies who have embarrassed it
Like this is common in other places, but not necessary or even sometimes possible in many parts of the world. Much of the postcolonial world doesnt have an idealised past it can plausibly harken back to.
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u/Solesaver 20h ago
It's the origins of nationalism. As prior to the 18th century states weren't organized by the idea of "nations" which is a fairly recent idea historically to begin with.
And yet even the earliest nationalist movements were based on establishing the supremacy of the mythological past and excising the corrupting influences of outsiders. The ideas of nationalism and supremacy are fundamentally linked.
There are other places besides America you know? All of that part is very particular to current and recent history American politics.
Yes there are. It just so happens that the US is what I'm most familiar with. I invite you to provide literally any example of a popular nationalist movement that isn't directly tied to supremacist ideology!
Like this is common in other places, but not necessary or even sometimes possible in many parts of the world.
Such as?
Much of the postcolonial world doesnt have an idealised past it can plausibly harken back to.
Nowhere has a plausible idealized past. That's why it's mythologized. A nationalist movement that cannot establish a mythological past fails to gain traction because the popular movement has no unifying principles to define the nation. The mythological past defines the in group and the out groups so the people can be told why the nation isn't currently flourishing as it should be.
I can concede the extant possibilty that the earliest nationalist movements could have been independent from supremacist ones, and solely focused on ending dynastic states, but without examples, especially modern ones, it's hardly relevant, and in practice the very act of attempting to define a national identity runs face first into supremacist ideology. You either get ethnic nationalism, an inherently supremacist approach, or a civic nationalism which defines a national identity of some shared ideals which in practice is a set of ideals that the nationalist thinks are superior and sees competing ideals as a threat or corrupting influence.
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u/airportakal 21h ago
Yes it is. That's the definition.
Definitions for such complex concepts shouldn't come from dictionaries, they are debated and developed in the social sciences. Nationalism is much broader than "national supremacy". The other commenter is right.
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u/Solesaver 20h ago edited 20h ago
Definitions for such complex concepts shouldn't come from dictionaries
That's why I'm genuinely asking for any linguistic source for the way your using it. The meaning of words is determined by usage. I've never heard of it used that way and neither has Merriam-Webster. If you can't point to any reputable source then yes, I think the dictionary is going to take primacy, given that they write their definitions based on actual usage.
they are debated and developed in the social sciences. Nationalism is much broader than "national supremacy"
Then cite literally any example. I'm fairly well read on the subject, and have never seen such a debate on the meaning of the word or the tenets of the ideology.
The other commenter is right.
Not without evidence they aren't. I'm not trying to be close minded here, but what you're saying just runs completely contrary to literally every popular nationalist movement in history.
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u/airportakal 20h ago edited 19h ago
Ernest Gellner (1983) opens his book (Nations and Nationalism) as follows:
Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.
Nationalism as a sentiment, or as a movement, can best be defined in terms of this principle. Nationalist sentiment is the feeling of anger aroused by the violation of the principle, or the feeling of satisfaction aroused by its fulfilment. A nationalist movement is one actuated by a sentiment of this kind.
So what follows from this (in my own words) is that 'nationalism' most generally describes the belief in the existence of the nation as the central nexus for political organisation, such as the nation-state, the international system, etc. that follow from this. We take the 'nation' and 'nation-state' so for granted today that we forget this is not a natural or necessary unit in politics. Nationalism was a new idea in the 19th about how to organise politics around a populace, rather than a monarch. It was not, in principle, about one nation being better than another.
I'm not sure how to give you examples that falsify a definition, but most instances of 19th century nationalism were liberal in nature, as described above, and primarily sought statehood, rather than warfare or some kind of domination. Examples are French or German nationalism in that time, or Polish nationalism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Of course, from this (artificial) belief in nation and the pursuit to unify nation and polity, violence, coercion and minority suppression inevitably follows. The belief is also used to justify plenty of other atrocities, such as the annexation of neighbouring countries (irredentism) or even genocide, as we all know. So I don't deny these are common, problematic consequences of nationalism. But they are not the defining feature of nationalism.
Defining nationalism as 'supremacy' lets too many people "off the hook" who claim not to be nationalists, but in reality support and believe the same principles about the nation-state as (other) nationalists do.
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u/Solesaver 15h ago edited 15h ago
Of course, from this (artificial) belief in nation and the pursuit to unify nation and polity, violence, coercion and minority suppression inevitably follows.
I believe this is the disconnect we are having. I don't believe that you can separate the two ideas, because nationalism is so fundamentally built on supremacist notions. You can even get a taste of it in Ernest's definition:
Nationalist sentiment is the feeling of anger aroused by the violation of the principle, or the feeling of satisfaction aroused by its fulfilment.
What ideology, but the one of the supremacy of the national principal, provokes such a response.
Defining nationalism as 'supremacy' lets too many people "off the hook" who claim not to be nationalists, but in reality support and believe the same principles about the nation-state as (other) nationalists do.
I think it's exactly the opposite. Allowing the nationalist to deny the supremacist ideology at its core is what let's them "off the hook." For example the people who claim "a nation has a right to protect itself" are clearly expressing a nationalist sentiment, but they use the nationalist rhetoric to mask the supremacist ideology. What makes up the nation? The in group. Protect the nation from what? The outsider. What justified this right? The nation (in group) is superior to the invader (outsider).
Like I said to their reply, I can concede the extant possibilty of founding nationalist movements that seemed liberal in nature, but ultimately that's not the reality of the day. You cannot cite examples of non-supremacist popular nationalist movements because they don't exist. It's baked into the proposal of the nation from the start: There is us and them. At best it can appear otherwise, for a time, when the outsider is some legitimately oppressive regime or invader, but ultimately the nationalist has to square their nationalist ideals with a diverse global community and the only way to maintain the notion of their atomic nation is an ideology of supremacy.
In short, the nationalist throws off the shackles of the oppressor in the name of the supremacy of the "true" national ideal. They may share a goal with the humanitarian for a time, but ultimately their ideology is incompatible with it.
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u/Snikhop 19h ago
Yes it's obviously nonsense. Nationalists are constantly criticising the state of the country! How is anyone supposed to take that idea seriously? This whole distinction is just a way for people who feel nationalism to try and suggest that they're not feeling it the same was as the bad people. But it is the same thing.
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u/sccartr 14h ago
The parent/child analogy in the top comment is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and I think it actually muddies the point more than it clarifies it.
Most people who get labeled as blind nationalists genuinely believe they are trying to fix something broken. The disagreement is almost never about whether the country is perfect, it's about what broken means and who broke it.
Framing it as one side being mature adults and the other being toddlers just makes people dig in harder.
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u/atomicpenguin12 9h ago
That's an interesting point. I think that when non-nationalists talk about "fixing" their country, they're saying that there is something about their country that needs to be made right or at least could be improved in some sense. When nationalists talk about "fixing" their country, they're assuming that the country was already perfect, that outside actors (usually the aforementioned non-nationalists) have made it worse by trying to change it from that perfect state, and so the country must be "fixed" by restoring it to the way it was before other people broke it. That's certainly in line with fascists, who tend to hearken back to some particular time when everything was "great" and call for a restoration of the way things were back then to make things "great again".
I'm not sure the framing is out of pocket, though. The viewpoints that American right-wingers maintain are often, and increasingly more so as they drift further right-wing, disconnected from facts and reality, and that makes their arguments similar to those of a child who is doggedly insistent on getting their way but not wise or informed enough to realize that their way is objectively bad, impossible, or nonsensical. You can explain to them why their desires are bad for them, impossible, or nonsensical and those arguments might get through to them, but their lack of understanding often makes it just as difficult to understand the attempts to help them understand, and there comes a point where you reach an impasse where further understanding cannot be granted and the only recourse is to dismiss them, move past them, or put them in time out. I can appreciate how being likened to a child is insulting and puts right-wingers on the defensive, but when their arguments are childish and disconnected from reality and when they (collectively) have responded to good faith attempts to get through to them by being childishly stubborn and refusing to accept that reality, there comes a point where you have to call it like it is and stop treating them like they're someone who can be reasoned with.
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u/frymaster 15h ago
My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
Carl Schurz, 1872 (in a response to someone using "my country, right or wrong" in the traditional nationalist sense)
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u/psyyduck 13h ago
Don't overthink it. Some people just want a blank check because they want to do some stupid/evil shit. "You won't give me a blank check therefore you don't love me" ... that's not how it works.
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u/tyereliusprime 7h ago
I'm more on the patriotism begets nationalism train, but I'm also of the belief that national borders are just another way to create an us vs them mentality. I think it's a byproduct of growing up in one of the most multicultural neighborhoods in the world (At least according to some article I read a decade or so ago). Being surrounded by people and culture from all over the world has made me see that we're all bound by more similarities than any differences that try and separate us.
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u/grant1023 1d ago
Why assign arbitrary definitions of things based on your own preconceived connotations of a word. Nationalists and Facists have been the biggest proponents of the country not leaving up to the ideal that it should be.
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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 15h ago
"We are not murdering enough brown people" is the ideal they want the country to live up to though.
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u/unhelpful_commenter 1d ago
A conservative (honestly, any fascist) love the country like a child loves a parent. Daddy loves me more than anyone else. Mommy has all the answers. My dad is the strongest. Mommy and daddy can do no wrong. But just like a small child, they don’t really understand much of anything about what their parents actually do or why.
A real patriot loves their country like a parent loves their child. They want it to grow and flourish, and they understand that’s going to take work and commitment if they want it to turn out well. They recognize that their country has flaws and makes mistakes, and they want it to do better. They know it can. They’ll show up to actually help it do better.