Anybody else just think patriotism is bollocks?

[Changeyncchange]

World cup got me thinking. I just feel no affinity to England as a concept. I was raised by 2nd gen immigrants who supported their parents international teams and the background of most of the kids at my school were similar so we didn't really get into it there.

Neither do I have no affinity to my grandparents country having not been since I was a child, I know many people from that country and immigration is still common but neither they nor I see us as sharing a nationality.

I just don't see the point. I think my own example shows how arbitrary and meaningless the whole concept of nationality and patronism is.

I'm interested to know if this is a quirk of my heritage or do others with different, more "English", backgrounds feel similar.

I don’t think it needs to overtake your brain. Although it can be taken to extremes.

For me there’s a happy medium where I appreciate and enjoy parts of what I’m lucky to be in and also know that others may feel the same about some of their country’s attributes.

I also very much enjoy the idea and travel to other countries. It’s a kind of positivity about the world and the different people in it. Not everything is meaningless but it is positive.

But it’s a spectrum and some will be in the it’s all bollocks or even worse territory, and others at the other end

Do you not feel any sense of pride or attachment towards the country your ancestors are from?
Curious as DH is a 3rd generation immigrant and he has a great deal of patriotism towards the country of his grandparents, much more so than I feel towards the country I was born and raised in, despite him only ever visited a handful of times.

Our ancestors have also done a lot of terrible stuff. Where does that fit into this rhetoric? Or do we just ignore the bits we don't like?

Patriotism isn't about liking things like the weather for me. It's about a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, a loyalty and identification with my country. I can still love things from other countries, appreciate different climates and be interested the history of other cultures whilst being patriotic. I also don't love everything about my country!

Oh yes, they're even bigger wankers than we are 🤣

Seriously though I'm with you OP and had to laugh at a pp who highlighted fairness, tolerance and queuing 🤣

English history is positively littered with examples of unfairness and intolerance. AIBU also shows quite clearly that they're not qualities we have in abundance.

So that really just leaves queuing. If that's all we have then there's no wonder why this country is fucked 🤣

Which leads to the fascinating concept of conformity through non-conformity.

None at all.

I did have when I was young but grew out of it. The country my grandparents were from effectively doesn't exist. I was raised on stories and culture from that country but from my grandparents youth. I know a fair few people from their and it may as well be a different country. In addition to it being a long time ago it is also a romanticised version of that country. Its basically fictional.

There not their!

I don’t understand it either. I am English born and bread, but feel no affinity to it and do not understand this “faux” patriotism, as that is what it is, most of the time. England just happens to be where I was born, but could happily live anywhere.

I used to think exactly like you OP. Patriotism is a human construct with at worst evil purposes, at best some nebulous Kumbaya purpose but mostly a non-event for the world's population who are preoccupied with more immediate and pressing concerns. I didn't and still don't buy into it as a concept.

As I age, I do very much feel (excuse the woo) that from cradle to grave, if we spend it in the same place as almost all humans used to and many still do, we can feel a connection to the land we inhabit. If you couple that with the assumption of a duty to preserve, and to raise future generations with that same duty to preserve, that type of patriotism makes sense to me. We come into the world with nothing, we leave with nothing, Earth is all there is ultimately and a pride in maintaining and preserving and leaving no trace is something we actively do and that we can take pride in.

The Native Americans, for example (there were and are plenty like them) had and still have it absolutely right.

As I age, I do very much feel (excuse the woo) that from cradle to grave, if we spend it in the same place as almost all humans used to and many still do, we can feel a connection to the land we inhabit. If you couple that with the assumption of a duty to preserve, and to raise future generations with that same duty to preserve, that type of patriotism makes sense to me. We come into the world with nothing, we leave with nothing, Earth is all there is ultimately and a pride in maintaining and preserving and leaving no trace is something we actively do and that we can take pride in

That's lovely.

Unfairness, intolerance, violence, othering litters the history of pretty much every civilization that has ever existed. Hell, that still describes most of the world today.

Well good for you I guess but I’m very proud of my English heritage and proud of our football team. I loathe this concept that if you’re English and not utterly ashamed then you must be a massive racist or stupid.

I am broadly on board with this post, because I do have a sense of connection with certain places in the world (where I grew up, where I live now, to name two) that feed my soul. I think this is about familiarity, and a need to create a home, though, and I have no interest in whether other people around me share it.

I do have to vehemently disagree that Native Americans are somehow exemplars of small-c conservatism. For one thing, they're in no way an homogeneous group. For another, when humans arrived in the Americas they hunted a huge amount of the fauna to extinction. Plus ça change.

Yes I’m not sure why people think that any of these attributes don’t apply to literally everywhere else. At least we do t murder people for being gay unlike the host WC country

There does seem to be a tendency to be overly negative if it’s here but not elsewhere, not sure why.

This whole subject is not all that different to how in a family, brothers and sisters pick and fight and call names, but as soon as the kid down the street starts, the brother and sister circle the wagons and stand up for the other.

Of course they apply everywhere else, but it's just as daft to try to claim the British are uniquely tolerant and fair, is the point.

What have people been drinking?? I'm loving the honesty on Mumsnet today. Makes me feel human.

And in another 100 years, no doubt people will be looking back at even the most progressive of our times people as knuckle draggers. Too many people worry about being on the right side of history, and forget to be on the right side of now.

I loathe this concept that if you’re English and not utterly ashamed then you must be a massive racist or stupid.

It's not a binary choice of being a proud patriot or being ashamed though. There are lots of things about England that I like and some things I don't. I imagine the same would be the case in any country I'd happened to be born in or lived in. I am neither proud nor ashamed to be English- it is an accident of birth.

There are things about the traditions and certainly the landscape of my country that I'm very fond of. But patriotism implies more than a benign appreciation of the place you were born imo.

OK so how is that relevant in relation to anti-gay laws?

And what does ‘the right side of now’ look like?

I don’t think anyone has claimed we are the only country but we are streets ahead of a lot of places whereby nobody would object to people of those countries being patriotic

I don't think anyone was claiming those things as uniquely British. Just that those are things that the British strive for. It is OK to be proud of something even if others can be proud of the same thing.