h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

kelli, sorry, I thought your second sentence was your understanding of what national pride (and therefore the question) was all about.

>>"Yet what national pride seems to be about, in its most idealistic and non bigotted form, is [celebrating our differences]"

And what it is about in its most bigotted form is celebrating all or most of our differences as inherent superiorites, ignoring or failing to learn about those of our differences that can't really be considered as good, and failing to appreciate the useful differences of others.

I can see more point in celebrating particular things, like having a British Ale Day or Shakespeare Day than having an England Day.

Aren't we now moving toward definitions of 'patriotism' and 'jingoism', and concluding that the former is good, while the latter is bad?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'm just not sure what merit there is in taking any kind of *pride* in things I haven't made a meaningful contribution to - ie things which happened before I was born, or would have happened if I had never been born, or had been born on the other side of the world.

If someone I've never met does something worthwhile in Cornwall, why should I be significantly prouder than if someone had done the same thing in the Outer Hebrides, or France, or China?

If the first English all-women team manages to climb a particular mountain, but they're the 10th all-women team to succeed on that peak, would it really mean anything unless I had some bizzare preconception that female English mountaineers should be systematically less competent than female mountaineers those from other countries?

Maybe the point of patriotism - but not jingoism - is a bonding thing? Something that helps to bind the individuals together to form a society. It may be that humans are inherently individual/independent, and need encouragement beyond the benefits of social living to rejoice in their own tribe (or similar social grouping)

Just me, musing....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'm not sure I generally need to feel bonded to people I've never met

Come the point when I need to find common purpose with people, if I couldn't find anything better than country of birth/residence, I'm not sure how much bonding I'd feel.

I think this is a rather nice summary of England, and why to be proud of it, warts and all.

"Gin in teacups
And leaves on the lawn
Violence at bus stops
And the pale thin girl with eyes forlorn"

"Yellowing classics
And canons at dawn
coffee wallows and pith helmets
and an English sun"

So how is 'celebrating being English' in any way different to 'celebrating not being from everywhere else'?

why not celebrate being English?

I celebrate being from Yorkshire on Yorkshire day - it's just a chance to be us.

There doesn't have to be a them'n'us attitude - how much of that do you see on St Patrick's day,or St David's day?

Germans celebrate their day (ok,it's unification day, but they manage to celebrate Germany) without being accused of being warmongering bloodthirsty eejits.

Same for the French and 14th July.

It's just a chance for a knees up, to be grateful we're not in some hellhole being bombed back into the stone age, etc etc.

Nothing to do with pride, really. And all this talk of how we can't be "proud" of being English just sounds like so much piffle to my ears.

Yes, we do have a great deal to be proud of,and things that we shouldn't be proud of. But on the whole, I rather like the idea of celebrating our Englishness (drinking eating scones and fish & chips and putting up with queueing when all normal people would give up...)

Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.


John Betjeman, In Westminster Abbey.

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/613.html

*Books from Boots - can't remember ever buying BOOKS from Boots? And to be honest, tampax are so much cheaper in Superdrug.

*country lanes - yes, but the queues of 4*4s can be annoying.

*Free speech - yeah they're a bunch of Rankers

*free passes - well anyone can get into Uni these days.

*class distinction - on the wane, or is that Wayne.

*Democracy - Well a million can march on the streets against war...................

*proper drains - plus hosepipe bans.

But yes, they'll always be an England whilst we can have a giggle!

Potholer:

Maybe the need is not yours, but that of the society you belong to?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Well, I don't see the need for pride - various other feelings of mutuality or even enlightened self-interest should suffice.
Do I pay more tax or become more law-abiding if I feel national pride?

No need for pride? As I said: Maybe the need is not yours, but that of the society you belong to?



No, you become a more committed member of the club (nation), more likely to say and do pro-club stuff. Celebrating national pride is just like Shell shelling out for 90 seconds of prime time TV to tell us they're really great.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>>"No, you become a more committed member of the club (nation), more likely to say and do pro-club stuff."

I'm not sure who has the right to judge my commitment as a citizen, or to assert that it is somehow related to the amount of vicarious pride I may or may not feel for things I have had little or no influence on.
I think my nation is strong enough that it doesn't need my irrational support, and my rational support doesn't need to be even partially fuelled by pride.

Whilst I'm perfectly prepared to acknowledge good things from my nation or other nations, if I don't go beyond the evidently justifiable, and I don't happen to say specifically pride-fuelled 'pro-Engish' things, to whom would it matter, apart from people who consider 'nation' as one of their priorities?

I suspect that in interactions with people from elsewhere, I'm more likely to give a good impression of the nation I come from by being myself rather than trying to be any kind of unpaid salesman.

>>"Celebrating national pride is just like Shell shelling out for 90 seconds of prime time TV to tell us they're really great."

To be perfectly honest, I don't think they're generally targetting people like me.
In any case, Shell employ people within and without the company whose job depends on convincing the rest of the company that spending money on advertising is a good idea.
Whether it actually makes much difference is another thing - remember that if the people trying to sell Shell to us really *do* have skills at convincing people, those skills will also have been used selling to Shell the idea of selling Shell to us.
Just as some people may end up thinking Shell are really good eggs even if they aren't, there may be people on the Shell board who think advertising is worth spending money on even if it isn't.

It seems most people are posting about things they like about living in the UK, or things they miss cos they don't live there anymore.

I mean honestly - one can feel *proud* about fish 'n chips?

I miss lots of things from when I used to live in Bristol. I also miss some stuff from when I used to live in Canada - my birthplace. I guess the only thing that makes me feel 'proud' about being Canadian is that most Canadians abroad are considered very open and generous people. The rest of the good stuff about Canada I had nothing to do with (fab health care system, non-nationalistic mentality, etc).

<> (Potholer)

I guess the biggest compliment I can receive in that context is that most people from outside Canada consider me to be a 'real Canadian' - unfortunately this is often in comparison to the neighbours from the South of Canada.

Am coming up to my 14th anniversary of living in Spain. And I have no idea where this leaves me in terms of feeling 'proud' about being anything in particular. Basically I'm just me, you know?


az

How about the society you belong to (i.e. the citizens that comprise it)?



Your nation can be no stronger than the citizens it comprises, and you are one of them. Not that this is personal to you (or anyone else), of course, it applies to all members of society (and similar social groupings). Without you and your compatriots, your nation is nothing.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

There you go, Az. You've come up with a useful service that Canada's much despised southern neighbors perform - we make everyone else look good in comparison.

Perhaps what those of us living in western nations should feel is a sense of gratitude for our affluent lifestyles rather than actual national pride. We (Americans) have all these flag-waving, patriotic holidays that I have always found a bit embarrassing, to be truthful. I have no problem honoring veterans and war dead, for example, but I find using the individual sacrifices of citizens to justify flawed foreign policy past and present repugnant.

I agree with the earlier sentiment that we aren't responsible for the past accomplishments or failures of our respective nations. On a national level our collective responsibility is to the present (social issues) and to the future (global issues). But here again, we are talking about individual sacrifice and accomplishment.

I have great affection for my country and have over the years done my bit in causes large and small that I considered important. What I find enormously unpleasant is the "we're better than you are" attitude of rabid nationalists.

>>"How about the society you belong to (i.e. the citizens that comprise it)?"

Well, I'd prefer to think I live somewhere where I'm jugded on my actions, not by my assertions of emotional commitment or the extent I let my judgement be swayed by attachment to a romantic ideal.
I'm a citizen, not a politician.

>>"Your nation can be no stronger than the citizens it comprises, and you are one of them. Not that this is personal to you (or anyone else), of course, it applies to all members of society (and similar social groupings).

The older I have grown, the less I see pride as a necesary motivating factor for my citizenship, or indeed anything else.
Some people may use their pride wisely, others may use it badly.
I prefer to try and avoid it where possible, at least in situations where I can't see I have a personal right to feel it, and even in *those* situations, I'd hope that any pride I may feel is an after-effect of having done the right thing, and that a desire to feel proud wouldn't be what motivated me to do the right thing in the first place.

One of the things I do value about where I live is the allowance of a diversity of opinions. I'd rather not have anyone try to suggest that relying on other motivations than pride makes me any less good as a member of society, or possibly more accurately, that *being more like them* would make me a better person. Of course, they have the right to say that, just as I have the right to disagree, being rather more of an authority on how I think than other people are.