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

When you start talking about Scottish inhabitants, it all depends on how far back you care to go.

The original inhabitants of Scotland where the Picts. They were practically eliminated by the Romans from the South and the Vikings from the North. What were left of the Picts were overcome by the Gaels from Ireland. The Gales and Northern Highlanders were considerably reduced by the slaughter the followed the Battle of Culloden (1746) by William, Duke of Cumberland after whom the flower Sweet William is named. Known in Scotland as the Stinking Lilly. A considerable number of Scots emigrated to the four corners of the World.

Which only left the English and their Scottish allies who were mainly of English decent in the first place.

So most Scots come from either one of the two minority groups, the Gales in the East of Irish Origin or the Highlanders in the North of Vikings origin. The rest are of English origin.

Donald

Well there you go. Many Scots reinhabited Northern Ireland, planted there by James I.

All countries that are not totally tribal are mixed up with each other, and getting more so. So what is your nation?

Painful scene in "Ulysses" where the Citizen asks Leopold Bloom that question. He replies "Ireland; Irish; I was born here". But the Irish don't want to own him because he is Jewish.

Not wanting to harp on, but here's a little more on the contrast between present-day Tibet and Scotland:

"Inside occupied Tibet the Tibetan people have no rights. They have no freedom of expression, no freedom of religion; photos of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan flag or anything that reflects Tibetan Nationalism are banned by the Chinese authorities."

from http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2004/2/11_7.html

Just noticed. My spelling of Gael is wrong. Not Gale as shown.

These spell checkers are not so clever as they think they are.

Donald

>> Many Scots reinhabited Northern Ireland, planted there by James I <<

So they were. Mainly becasue by this time Scotland was predominatley Prodastant. The story still goes on!!

>> So what is your nation? <<

I have got to say British. My Grandfather was a Highlander. My Grandmother was English. My Mother was Welsh and my Father was born in Liverpool. I was born on the other side of the River Mersey! A good bit of expansion of the gene pool going on there.

Donald

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" -- Samuel Johnson.

The answer to the question in this discussion seems to be "no". Pride in one's nation is only a virtue while that nation is downtrodden, and it is neither popular nor profitable to show such pride.

Otherwise it is insufferably triumphal bombast.

You've detected an answer?

Pride in one's nation is not necessarily manifested as 'triumphal bombast' or anything equivalent to it; pride is a state of mind. Bombast _can_ be an outcome of pride, but it does not follow from a rejection of bombast that pride is bad whether it leads to bombast or not. Oh, and insufferability is by definition subjective, whereas the question seems to be phrased in such a way as to anticipate an objective response.

Not everyone agrees on Johnson's intended meaning; depending on whom you ask, either he was saying that patriots were scoundrels (in their last refuge) or he was saying that scoundrels took patriotism (or the appearance thereof) as their last refuge (but not that every patriot was a scoundrel taking refuge).

Quite. The whole question -- pride, demeaning -- is subjective. Perhaps it's good to be proud of your nation so long as you don't go on about it.

Perhaps.

So we haven't actually found a non-subjective answer, and have reason to doubt that there is one. Progress of a sort.

I think everyone has their right to be or not to be proud of their nations.It's meaningless to argue on such a problem.No one has the right to demmand others to change their minds,doesn't it?

There probably wouldn't be much point, the holding of an opinion not being a volitional action. However, while I think you're possibly right, the holding of a 'right' is an objective notion, and so we need an objective demonstration of the presence of a right to be, or not to be, proud of one's nation, and of the absence of any right to demand that others change their minds.

If the holding of an opinion is not a volitional action, what are we to make of the people described by Tolstoy, who appear to be the strongest proponents of a viewpoint, because they choose their opinions, like their clothes, according to the latest fashion?

I'm not familiar with the reference, but I was taking an 'opinion' to be a view actually held -- a genuine belief state -- and it sounds from the reference as though those described are merely giving the appearance of holding particular opinions, rather than genuinely holding them. Alternatively, the intended sense may be that they are so strongly influenced by fashion that they automatically (and therefore non-volitionally) adopt opinions (the word 'choose' therefore not being used in its literal sense), or that they adopt fashionable opinions in accordance with the underlying (and not chosen, unless it rests on a further underlying opinion) opinion that the fashionable opinion is the correct one.

Going back to the original question, I would say 'Yes'. As a Scot,I am proud of the contribution we have made to world civilisation, in subjects such as History, Economics,Law, in fact most of the liberal arts, as well as having the godfather of Geology. I don't think this demeans anyone, maybe it's just being proud of the right things. Also, as a British person, every time the World Cup comes along, knowing that every country in the world (almost) is watching a game that was invented here, that makes me proud as well. Likewise, being the nation of Newton, Darwin and Shakespeare brings a warm glow, but being the nation of Empire, well all that slavery, murder and exploitation just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid.

I agree with you.
People can be proud of what is worth being proud of(of course the things they are proud of should be good).At this point,I think,we didn't have much disagreement.