I do not love my country.
What I love are the people who care for others despite the glaring differences that attempt to deprive them of a spiritual and very real connection. If those people happen to reside in my nation, my state, or my city, then it is only by coincidence that I love them as well.
Compassion for every living being should be fostered because we are all one, not because we share superficial commonalities.
Nationalism promotes the "us vs. them" mentality. It's a symptom of the negative mindset that seeks to belong through the method of defining differences between us all. It seeks to narrow our vision of who to include in our lives and it constrains our love as it seeks to exclude the majority of life on earth. It's a survival technique that our very social species has developed in order to increase the changes of our tribe's success. But it does nothing for our thriving. I believe we can survive and indeed thrive more efficiently now if we expand our tribe, the "us," to include all of humanity -- indeed, all of life in general. All of us are capable of gifting that much love. It's more of a matter of whether or not we are all willing to gift that much love and doing so despite it being somewhat socially unacceptable.
If you do not believe that you could ever see through the "other's" differences, take note from research conducted by psychologist, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. According to her "broaden-and-build" theory of positive emotions, incorporating positivity in your life helps to close the gap formed in our minds between "me" and "them," whether the others are those who are already close to you in your life or complete strangers.
Nationalism, xenophobia, us vs. them, tribalism -- all of these methods of closing off other human beings from our lives due to our differences that we happened to be born with destroy our potential for greatness in our global community.
Samuel Johnson, Ambrose Bierce, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Schopenhauer, Noam Chomsky, and others would agree and rightfully so.
ReplyDeleteFear me or revere me, but please think I'm special, says the patriot of flags and countries, for little reason other than 'I was born here'. Indoctrination, like religion, is assurred: an induced epidemic, a contagious disease.
An attribute of factious brow-beating for sure, designed to swash sedition/dissent, but does the opposite, and most seemingly fall victom to it. The result is war. Willing to kill or be killed by the illusory notion that one's country, one's illusion, one's flag is superior to all others.
Look at me! my flag! my patriotism! my superiority! but disregard my addiction for the approval of others, my need for the slap on the back, the gold watch, the hip-hip hoo-fuckin' rah in awe of my polished badge of greatness.
Ha! I thought from your cartoons that I would get a response if I left at least one glaring error in my text comment. Comic # 8. So much for that.
ReplyDeleteWe used that tactic when we drew construction plans for peer review. They would latch on to the glaring error and miss the minor stuff which was also intentional. Great inner office fun. Probably costs us some raises.
One global economy may exist one day that may be referred to as the Dream of what you are speaking of and if you have any understanding of a global economy and businesses that can and may exist one day then it may single out the ones who we may call " different " simply by the commanlities of need which can actually create that kind of " one " "culture " mindset.
ReplyDeleteIndigenous goods that are located in different areas and it may be referred to as the one United world. As well as donations to begin a future that may be an actual agenda in some parts of the Globe
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