NOTE THE UNUSUAL VENUE!
Come join us for an informal philosophical discussion. No prior knowledge or research is required, but an open mind is.
Patriotism and nationalism are often contrasted in a simple formula: patriotism is love of one's country, nationalism is arrogant hostility toward other countries. But the history of these words is much messier. Nationalism has often meant liberation from an empire; patriotism has often justified conformity, exclusion, or war. So should we keep the convention "patriotism good, nationalism bad", or do we need better distinctions?
There is also a deeper philosophical puzzle. Why do modern people care so much about nation-states in the first place? Why not give primary loyalty to family clans, cities, religions, languages, empires, humanity as a whole, or philosophical creeds? A few centuries ago those other loyalties were much more powerful, and nation states in today's sense of the world didn't even exist. Historian Benedict Anderson famously called nation states "imagined communities" - not imaginary in a literal sense, but rather highly artificial communities whose members mostly never meet each other. What makes this kind of "imagined" belonging so powerful?
Discussion questions:
- Is it wrong, admirable, or "neutral" to believe that your country is the greatest in the world?
- What kind of national pride is healthy, and what kind becomes dangerous?
- Should love of country be based on gratitude, shared culture, political ideals, historical achievement, or something else?
- Can a country honestly celebrate itself while also facing its failures?
- If national identity is partly "imagined", does that make it less real - or only more philosophically interesting?
- Can a universalist, cosmopolitan worldview give people the same emotional belonging that nationalism provides?
- Is "critical patriotism" a stable position, or does it eventually become either ordinary patriotism or ordinary criticism?
