National pride and shame

[Phillip Hone]

As an American, I'm pretty used to hearing people constantly brag about what we've done in the past. Events like WWII, defeating the British, est. Everyday, it is constantly impressed on us how we should take pride in our country for what it has done in the past 300 years.

How ever, when ever the subject of something like slavery comes up, everyone immediately points out that it took place in the past, and that most Americans alive today have had nothing to do with it. This is true enough, but doesn't it also apply to the things that we like to take pride in? It's not as if there are any veterans from the Revolutionary war who are still alive.

Is there a contradiction, or am I just misunderstanding something?

[DavidEC]

You are so right it makes my head explode. This is exactly the sort of thing I trot out tiredly whenever some nationalist pipes up and if you'll forgive me I have plenty of examples not specifically related to America.

It's people free-riding off their countrymen's glory and they can do it because they think being born, or living within the same country as, or being descended from, those heroes, gives them some magical connection which allows the bragging. Face it, it's an accident of birth. Heroism and bragging rights do not osmotically transfer from generation to generation.

Personally I only accept it if the person has done something to continue that legacy. For example, if someone had a grandfather in WWII, they cannot free-ride off of him, but if they are serving or former members of the US military - or any of the Allied militaries - and have served honourably, then they can have some measure of the old glory.

It also has ridiculous intellectual implications. Take, as a strange but relevant example off the top of my head, how Ken Livingstone once called a journalist a 'concentration camp guard', to which the guy responds, "Actually I'm Jewish, so I find that quite offensive." Consider general arguments in which young Jews link their Jewishness with their hatred for Nazis. If you weren't Jewish, would you hate them less?

One should always come up valid arguments because otherwise it's just being mentally provincial. I could say I hate communism because my great-grandfather was beaten to death for being slightly richer than the rest of the village - i.e. a kulak. But while that would be being emotionally reasonable, it's really just me being emo and selfish.

I hope I've addressed the underlying theory of magical responsibility transfer, good or bad. The rest of the problem is basically them being good ol' fashioned hypocrites - accepting the theory when it suits their self-glorification and rejecting it when it doesn't.

Always call them on it, Mongoose. I think the phrase is, "having your cake and eating it too," though I was never able to figure out the logic of this analogy. Sometimes they do take responsbility and it goes from self-service to self-loathing - look at these slightly pathetic British white people crying over 'their' responsibility for 200-year-old slavery. There is a sound balance and it's basing your intellectual arguments either on sound logic or some profound personal experience, but never patriotic free-riding or racial self-abasement. Rant over.

[DavidEC]

PS Please don't think it's just Americans who do that. Think about British Daily Mail or Sun fans who wax lyrical about the SAS and how amazing they are and how Britain invented half the world. Think about France and its intellectual heritage. Think about Germans and their war guilt. Think about Greeks and 300. Think about Arabs and how wonderful their Golden Age was and how it proves Islam is a religion of peace.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

On the subject of people taking "credit" for their ancestors actions:

I have an internship at the statehouse here in MA. When I walk from the Park Street Station to the statehouse itself, I often pass under a large "UC" (Union Club, IIRC) banner. Apparently to be a member of said club you must be a direct descendant of a Civil War vet from one side or the other. It just goes to exemplify the stupid mentality of these jingoistic nationalists.

[DavidEC]

Didn't you get the news? Inherent heroism is transmitted through the genes, like magical ability in Harry Potter. Sucks to be non-heroes.

[TC Pilot]

How ever, when ever the subject of something like slavery comes up, everyone immediately points out that it took place in the past, and that most Americans alive today have had nothing to do with it. This is true enough, but doesn't it also apply to the things that we like to take pride in? It's not as if there are any veterans from the Revolutionary war who are still alive.

I don't think feeling pride in your country's achievements while downplaying or even rationalizing its faults or mistakes is a hypocritical thing. One is part of a collective organization that has done some impressive things that were only possible thanks to the culture and society one is a part of: decisive intervention in two world wars, becoming a superpower, landing on the moon, first long-lived republic in over a millenia, etc. Certainly, the United States has done some awful things too: genocide of native Americans, internment of Japanese citizens, massacres in Vietnam, post-war South American foreign policy, etc. But why should pride in one thing be negated by shame in something else? It's entirely natural to try and downplay shameful or embarrassing events in one's life, as mush as it is to embelish achievements.

However, it's utterly ridiculous to derive any sort of personal pride out of things accomplished by others before one was even born. The real problem you seem to be having is that you're being presented with this silly "it took place in the past, and that most Americans alive today have had nothing to do with it" defense.

[Havok]

I find nothing wrong with taking pride in the fact that the nation you are a part of and support was able to rise up to an occasion and do something good. It serves as a reminder that sometimes you have to do that and I think it gives us hope that if an occasion arises again, we, the current generations, will also be able to rise up.

That being said, I agree completely with EC about taking that bad with the good as well. I personally don't marginalize what bad, or just plain horrible, things my country has done in the past. I don't quite embrace them, but I realize that those events as well as the good ones have brought us to where we are today. Would I want some things to not have happened? Sure. Would I change them? No. We hopefully have learned from those mistakes and become stronger and better for them.

[K. A. Pital]

It's natural for people to assume their cultural identity has to do with the actions of their forefathers and fathers. It's also natural to present yourself as the goodie goodie goo, while any and all opponents of yours as either evil incarnate or human waste at worst. I guess humanity still has much to learn.