Quote Originally Posted by deguerra
am at work, so ill keep it brief. to add to your nationalism/nationstate debate:

i have to say i quite like where germany is at the moment. ever since ww2, germany has been a distnictly un-patriotic country, as even the slightest show of patriotism was percevied (or cried down) as far-right nationalism.

we do not learn our national anthem, we do not hoist our flags at many public buildings and are generally not taught to be proud of our country.

i have two insights on this:

1. patriotism is somewhat inevitable (yes, i used it because of previous discussion :P). as german patriotism was frowned upon, people instead showed patriotism for their states (bavaria, hamburg etc.) for their dialects or for their municipal regions. instead of having national festivals, we had smaller ones. the idea of becoming utterly unpatriotic seems not to work.

2. patriotism can be good. i was never proud of germany in my life until i left it. i think it had do to with the combination of seeing how other countries WERE patriotic and viewing germany from a distance for the first time, but i slowly began to not only accept but be happy with my heritage. to me now, being german is about reminding the world of what ultra-nationalism can lead to, and ironically, being proud of that role, perhaps i am guilty of a little nationalism.

i still think many countries go to far. the USA is always a prime example, but really many other countries are not that different. to be honest, I find that most every country's citizens have a lot to be proud of, and should be. it is only when it leads to degrading other countries...be it officially, in stereotypes or just by idiots on internet forums ( ) that I sometimes sit back and worry at the destination this world is heading to.

its good to see such open people as on this forum, and indeed i find myself more conservative than some of you. but that is for another time.

brief...hah

deguerra
I found it interesting to hear your point of view with regards to being German. Germany has indeed been discouraged from being "nationalistic" which is ironic because they didn't exactly invent genocide. Genocide has been perpetrated by many countries including my own. But so many people treat the holocaust as somehow "worse" than your "run of the mill" genocide. So the idea that German nationalism is somehow more dangerous than other nationalisms has always bugged me.

And deguerra, I have found that many people find themselves more conservative than me. I have learned to just roll with it.