Why are people patriotic?

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Where does patriotism come from? Why do people develop it, how is it developed? How come people will always state similar things when they are asked about what they love so much about their country? What are your thoughts on this?

[Col. Kurtz 0]

I think of true patriotism as love of ones land, the place where they were born and grew up.

The place that is something special to them, and a place they are willing to defend to keep it the way they like it.

Example, I was born in New Zealand, have grown up in New Zealand, and would defend New Zealand from foriegn invasion.

Don't like the government and don't like quite a few of the people here, but I like the fact that it's a place that I can call home.

So in my opinion, patriotism is sort of a territorial thing, my land, I like it, stay off it!

(of course your welcome to visit it, just leave the military hardware at home )

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

I think of true patriotism as love of ones land, the place where they were born and grew up.

The place that is something special to them, and a place they are willing to defend to keep it the way they like it.

Ok, this is more like a description of what patriotism is. My real question, though, is: where is the source of this coming from? Why do people love their country? Why these special feelings? Why these special feelings towards one particular country and not another?

[Harnu 0]

Some of it could be boiled down to propoganda. But like Col. Kurtz said, I am patriotic becuase I like my country, the way I grew up, and the way it is.

[bn880 5]

Well I will throw this into the puzzle here and then let it sit for a while. My views;

It has a lot to do with evolution, and how being patriotic to a "social" group ended up on average in that group of people prospering more and promoting their gene pool better. It is the result of our past social behaviour which lead us to prosper and multiply. Therefore when you worry about the stability of a specific social group as your nation, you worry about yourself and propagating your gene pool better. Pure survival, but actually it is less/more than that. A higher level species self preservation.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Some of it could be boiled down to propoganda.  But like Col. Kurtz said, I am patriotic becuase I like my country, the way I grew up, and the way it is.

Yeah, but I think we all agree that Patriotism is that you like your country to some extent. The big question however is: why do you like it? How did this happen? Is it just a collection of facts, is there a deep reason behind it, or is it part of human nature to seek identification with a specific "tribe", preferably the one where one is originating from? In other words, patriotism is nothing but a glorified tribalism and pact instinct?

[killagee 0]

Patriotism / Nationalism has been the binding pshycological glue of the last thousand years.

People will give the same answers about their country because we are all indocrinated by our environment and Ruling Elite. In New Zealand we all say it is the Most Beautiful Country in the world. ( I think its true and I been allover the world...). Our Govt spends lots of money telling the world this.

Americans seem to say they live in the greatest country, and recite material they learnt at school as to why this is so...

The Romans thought they were the best and had the right to smite their enemies at will to protect their "intetrests".

Same with the Greeks

British. American. Russian... you get the idea.

However this glue, sticking together the ruling elite and the masses who support them (for little or no return), has become viscous in the last 100 years.

Mans patriotism, his belief that he owes something to his country, has been manipulated and played on for centuries by the ruling elite. But with the advent of modern technology the Highs and lows of its effects have stretched wider apart...

in 1915 Young men ( mostly farmer boys) from new zealand were inspired (read: tricked) to board boats and sail to turkey to fight the ottoman empire... Gallipole

in the 1930's yound men in germany were inspired to beat up jews and gays and eventually invade europe etc...

I am sure you get my drift. There have been positive uses of patriotism, such as in the aftermatf of 9/11 where the americans decided they had become stronger and many unpatriotic people became fervently nationistic. The govt (in typical MonoHegimonic fashion) then used this fervent of anger and patriotism to pursue its own agenda which had been in the pipeline since 1997. And once again Men march off to die and kill...

Our civilisation, and its societies, developed in geographical and cultural isolation. Now I can talk to someone anywhere on the planet. I can be there in 12 hours. I can get news from anywhere in the world instantly. We all know how each over lives ( apart from the poor buggers who actually believe what they see on Telly ).

The time for Patriotism and Nationlism has ended. We no longer need it. Maybe it should be replaced by Earthism?

[mr burns 131]

ok....being really drunk and having read only the last reply from ex-ronin, i´d say patriotism develops from the desire of riding the wave of  opportunism (a bit like the nazi regime, everyone rides the same wave and things get more easy).

how can people like me or other young individuals feel patiotism for a country that never had been in serious danger or even war during theitr lifetimes ?

patriotism has to devolop through love to your country and your own will in giving the best for the place where you use to live ..

drunken man , out.

[iNeo 0]

Territory and identification.. State bringing people within a territory together to one unit, you share the language, culture, looks, history. Protected and lead by the same relatively small group of chosen people.

And you want to keep this territory, identification, language, culture, looks and history, and you want to show the world this, you want honor & respect to your people because you're proud and that's what you want to be.

[bn880 5]

And you want to keep this territory, identification, language, culture, looks and history, and you want to show the world this, you want honor & respect to your people because you're proud and that's what you want to be.

I can ask you, why would one want that?

[blackdog~ 0]

I remember a thread just liket his from a long long long long time ago...

[Acecombat 0]

Well mr ronin as the Quran states " We have created different tribes/groups among you so you may diffrentiate among yourself " ...

I think patriotism basically coms from , th love of ones land and usually its human nature to be a bit possessive of ones belongings whther it be territorial or a objective. Plus we as humans as bn880 pointed out are like divided in small social groups which ever we belong to we usually like the best and stick up for its rights....

But there are instances in which a person betrays his country/or doesnt plainly like it. That doesnt means hes unpatriotic i think it signifies his liking is someplace else and not where he originally belongs to. Which also points out that PATRIOTISM isnt really what we think of it to be its a univrsal thing , like if we like a place stick to it and live their and lov it enough to not let anyother have it , then a feeling of this 'patriotis' develops. Its nothing more then a personal human instinct which emanate from our over-possessive nature of something we like , so its not merely a survival thing as bn880 said

[DKM Jaguar 0]

I think that patrotism is caused by knowing your country and seeing what it is like, so you get to love it. I feel bloody angry when people have a go at the UK (mostly from americans, i must add) and it is becuase what they use to insult england with is not a realistic picture of the country. I think that if we got to know more than one country we would be patriotic about thatone too, but not many people get the chance..

That's my theory.

[Jamesia 0]

according to Oscar Wilde Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious.

Most of the time patriotism is just an excuse for people to be bitchy to eachother

[Tamme 0]

But there are instances in which a person betrays his country/or doesnt plainly like it. That doesnt means hes unpatriotic i think it signifies his liking is someplace else and not where he originally belongs to.

I would betray my country only because of my dislike for the government. (It would need to be some sort of a nazi party in power before I'd do it) Actually I wouldn't think of it as betraying my country, but I'd do it for my country. We didn't fight three wars for some nazis to take over. It wouldn't be Finland as I loved it, and I'd definately do something about it.

Of course there are people who can be bribed to do virtually anything, but that's another thing.

[denoir 0]

Patrotism and similar things come from our desire to be something special plus the fundamental way our brain works. Our biological neural nets work primarily with classification and clustering. We organize things into categories. So one of the basics is to associate classes to different parameters and features. Coming from one country, speaking the same language and sharing the same culture are typically parameters that our brain likes to generalize about.

Another basic mechanism in nature is competition and selection. The individual has a desire to show how good he is. And this is on a very basic darwinian level.

Combined patriotism is a statement that "I'm cool because I'm part of this group".

You can see a very good example of this in Nazi Germany that exploited exactly these two mechanisms. The economy was bad, big unemployment, they were humiliated in the last war etc.. i.e the German population had a serious confidence problem. And along came Hitler who appealed to patriotism by claiming that Germans were cool just because they were Germans. No strings attached. You don't have to have work or do something to be superior, being German was enough. And people like hearing that they are superior and that principle can and is easily exploited for political purposes.

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country

is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -George Bernard Shaw

[bn880 5]

And I can ask you Denoir, why do you think our brains are wired like this? All of you are coming down to the basic statement I made, it is part of evolution and survival.

PS: There can be no other answer than survival to all general human behaviour. In one way or another everyhting we do and feel is related to evolution.

[denoir 0]

And I can ask you Denoir, why do you think our brains are wired like this?  All of you are coming down to the basic statement I made, it is part of evolution and survival.  

I agree that it's evolutionary. Why it is that way, I don't know. The very core fundamentals of our perception of the world work on the principle of dichotomy: the separation of everything into two. And from what I've been told in neurobiology it's our oldest vision part of the brain that works on that principle and that everything is built around it. And I suppose that it has to do with that something exists or something doesn't exist which is a very basic fundamental principle in the physical reality.

Again, why this is and why our perception of the world is like that I can't say. And I'm not sure that we can answer that objectivly at all since our picture of the world is obviously influenced by our perception of it. So it's more of a philosophical question than a practical one.

What we know is that in nature individuals and groups of individuals compete over limited resources. We also know that our brain works on the principle on generalization (classification and clustering). And those two principles brought together result in among many things patriotism.

Also I think what should be noted is that patriotism is no different in principle than for instance racism. It's just more politically correct. Both however assign credit to an arbitrary population by selection of some arbitrary common parameters. "I love my country" or "I love my skin color" is no different. Some will point out that patriotism doesn't necessarily include saying that other countries suck in relation to your country, but I'd say that it's pretty much implied.

The problem is also that a term like "love for your country" are very vague. What is it exactly that you love? The nature? The people? The political system?

The broader your definition is, the more incorrect your model is going to be etc etc Before beginning this discussion one should really try to define what really patriotism is.

[Supah 0]

Quote[/b] ]PS: There can be no other answer than survival to all general human behaviour.

How about suicide?

[bn880 5]

Suicide is likely another evolutionary step, I would rather not get into this. I don't think it would go over well with some people.

EDIT: Denoir I agree with your post entirely....

[-33ker 0]

Patriotism has to do with our society, which is still full of the tribal principles which dominated human living since the very beginning! People have to belong to some kind of group, it's a basic need! Clubs, families, ethnic groups, countries,... and one of the main "tribal formations" our society has is the nationality.

[Heatseeker 0]

Patriotism=irrationalism, why are some so proud of their nationality? History? Politics? Society? Could some patriotic person explain whats makes one feel that way? Would you give your life for your country? I mean we are all citizens of a big poluted and corrupted planet, perhaps if there was an alien invasion or something... .

[Jamesia 0]

WHEN DID DENOIR GET BACK?!

[Harnu 0]

WHEN DID DENOIR GET BACK?!            

Quote[/b] ]denoir

Advanced Member

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[bn880 5]

Patriotism=irrationalism, why are some so proud of their nationality? History? Politics? Society? Could some patriotic person explain whats makes one feel that way? Would you give your life for your country? I mean we are all citizens of a big poluted and corrupted planet, perhaps if there was an alien invasion or something... .

What is a major part of evolution and thus helping with the propagation of one self (ones genetic pool or a genetic pool one associates with) can hardly be dismissed as irrational.

Or it can be called irrational in the sense that some ones rational understanging is not capable of encompassing patriotism or suicide or love into an evolutionary model. Not only what you like is part of evolution, everything you do not like is part of it as well.