Why are people patriotic?

[stevevcb 3]

Being proud of your country is not irrational, it's quite natural. Everyone's proud of their little social circle, their home town, their region and their mother country, no matter how much they deny it. I think where patriotism turns bad is when people begin to labour under the misapprehension that their nation is always right, always correct, and is God's favourite.

I'm very proud of my national identity due to certain events in the past, but I still feel very ashamed about certain things that my country's done. It seems to me that some people seem to only remember the "good" things about their history, forgetting the bad things or blaming it on someone else. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the problem lies with patriotism.

[bonko the sane 2]

Almost all animals (and even plants) defend their territory; we humans just have a new word for it "patriotism" its just a question of survival, long before we were hominids we already engaged in territorial warfare (i.e: look at chimpazees). So, its a genetic factor, plus the much more recent human cultural factor, but i think the root is deeply bred in us on our genetic code.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Is loving your family rational? Why not love someone elses family instead? Are you certain yours is the kindest, or the most intelligent or attractive or that it is the most capable of giving you happiness?

If fact personal experience tends to form the first basis of affectionate attachments (overiding attempts at objective reasoning) and that will generally lead people to become most attached to their own family and i suggest in a similar fashion their country. So perhaps indeed people tend to love their country because its 'theirs', or so they feel. They are familiar with the environment, accustomed to the way of life, can identify (to a greater or lesser extent) with its people and have spent the greatest extent of their time there. It is true that patriotism ('love of country'?) is a somewhat nebulous concept. But then love of any kind tends to be somewhat nebulous and difficult to pin down or outline the limits of rationally.

There is certainly an ignorant and bigoted strand of patriotism that relies on crude generalisations, promotes closed mindedness and can become obsessive or morbid to the extent of fascism. But i do not see that as being the only form or expression of patriotism. Patriotism does not exclusively or necessarily mean believing in the absolute superiority of ones country above all others but simply indicates an affection for that country especially in the absense of a similar (or equal) affection for most other countries (whether due to ignorance of other countries, personal taste or whatever).

There is the important attachment to the land itself that may sometimes be stronger in the patriot than the attachment to the great mass of fellow people. Also there is the phenomenon of people loving their 'corner' of a country above the country as a whole- again putting personal experience over anything more abstract- yet because the place they live falls within that particular national boundary they may profess to being a patriot of that country.

To some extent patriotism relies upon an identification with or at least affection for the greater populace. This Identification need not be complete or the affection great but in as much as patriotism requires a certain percieved giving up of oneself to that greater whole (if only at certain points or in calling oneself an XXXlander) there must almost always be a degree of empathy and sympathy felt with ones fellow citizens. So for example in London, protesting against Bushs visit i met

rebellious left leaning american youths who felt excluded from their percieved national identity as defined by the current administration and looking at the EU felt a certain affection and affinity (though this brings us to the complicated interactions between the media, the populace, the government, existent conservative and other forces that help define the culture in which peoples patriotic potential is included or excluded)

Patriotism is no doubt related to evolution (in as much as everything loosely may be) but nations have only existed for a very short period in evolutionary time. There is then the suggestion of pre existing desires and tendancies being directed into affection for the nation/state. Certainly human culture is evolving much quicker and more visibly than our genes and its far from obvious whether patriotism now confers any survival advantage for the species or the individual.

[bn880 5]

Well a Nation is a lot like a tribe or a social group which is part of our evolution. Nothing questionable about patriotism, if no one supported their nation then it would crumble and you would end up much worse than if you did support it (in most cases). Much like Poland, where so many people just left and don't really give a rats butt about anyhting other than their own pockets.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Also it has taken us backwards and to the brink of destruction before. There is the potential (however distant or slim) for national affection and solidarity to be converted to something more global and less potentially destructive no?

[bn880 5]

I would hope there is, yeah there probably is indeed. But when resources are kind of limited for the population, and human nature always wants more, it's hard to say if this will happen.