are Nationalism & Patriotism strange forms of religion?

[mopaul]

i'm referring to patriotism and it's many degrees. getting a tug in your heart when you see the flag waving in the wind is one form, and super patriotism and nationalism is a fanatical form. in fact, nationalism often gets mixed up in various ways with religion, sometimes. the taliban for example, or the xian conservative branch of the reichwing republican party.

at some point, loving your country can become a negative and destructive force, as we have seen repeatedly in history. nationalism can be a substitute for religion, or an enhancement of it.

i confess, although i love america, i have never experienced any type of emotion at all seeing a flag in the sky. am i disfunctional? am i not patriotic or appreciative? in fact, i'm more moved by seeing a flag being burned as a statement of dissent. and i also see a flag draped coffin as a bizarre irony: young men and women, fighting and dying for an evil purpose, then draped with the flag that represents the evil diplomats.

when does loving one's country become nationalism? would you die for america and it's values? would you gladly send your son or daughter off the fight for these values? and if you saw your son return from baghdad in a flag draped coffin, would the site of the american flag inspire you, or piss you off? i'll feel prouder when we can fix the damage that has been done in the last 2 1/2 years by this jerkoff in the whitehouse.

[Iverson]

1. no

The suffix "-ism" implies a belief or practice. That's enough. Religion requires something much more codified.

As you note ...

"nationalism can be a substitute for religion, or an enhancement of it."

... these things can be overlaid on religion or substitute for it, but they are not the thing itself.

[JHB]

2. No, but they're related...

Both involve personally identifying with something larger than one's self. And since one is "spritual" and the other physical/tribal/real world, it's not surprising they often get wrapped up together (despite specific admonishments to the contrary).

[clar]

3. Nationalism....

I'm going to mangle this guy's name: It's something like Percival Rech-Mallzwen. He wrote a journal documenting Hitler's rise to power and Germany under Hitler. It was published, I believe in England, under the title "Diary of a Man in Dispair". I haven't seen it in years. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Anyway the author defined Nationalism as "A state of mind in which a man hates another country, more than he loves his own." In other words Nationalism invariably includes hate. BTW, the author was murdered by the Nazis towards the end of the war.

[rock]

4. Nationalism and religion share the concept of

acceptance of their principles with no proof. I do like to keep patriotism quite distinct from both in that a patriot can question his country's leaders and does not have to depend on blind faith.

[lastliberalintexas]

5. Not necessarily

But even more importantly, please do not confuse nationalism for patriotism. They are NOT the same things, and we need to continually remind the RW of that.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. Yes

In patriotism/nationalism, the state, or the leader, is God. Their function is the same. Reich has some interesting things to say about this.

[Gringo]

7. I always thought of them as a wierd form of egotism

For people who have achieved little personally, they can boast about their country's victories (which of course, they had no part in achieving), and put down others who dissent, even with no facts to back them up.

I'm proud of my country only when it does things that make me proud - things like the New Deal or the Marshall plan made me proud of this country.

Having an intellectually lazy, TV-addled populace uninterested in questioning the most egregious of acts by its unelected "leader" does not make me proud. Nor does stealing another chunk of oil, so that we can waste a little longer before we have to ride those bike-generators, like in Soylent Green.

I sure hope one of these dem candidates can make me proud again.

[sirshack]

8. Not really

If it is, than the fondness anyone expresses for anything can be twisted into religion. Love Big Macs? The Stone Roses? Puppy Dogs? the Arizona Diamondbacks?