
Could Patriotism Be Genetic? - BIackSwan
http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/why-were-patriotic
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vijayr
genuine question - why should anyone feel patriotic at all? shouldn't we
love/like the whole planet? what is the point in getting attached to a place
just because we were born there?

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bovermyer
The article explains this, to a degree.

The short version is that we naturally identify with people similar to us.
Geographic separation is an influencer in this. As such, a person will
identify more closely with those around him than with those hundreds of miles
away. An ingroup and an outgroup are thus formed. Per the article, such a
distinction can then lead to either patriotic (pro-ingroup) or nationalist
(anti-outgroup) behavior, depending on how strong one's ties to one's own
group are.

This is why the only way to unify the planet as you suggest is to introduce an
extraterrestrial threat strong enough to make our entire species an ingroup.
Which is, if you'll forgive the comics nerd moment, exactly what Ozymandias
does in the Watchmen.

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Kristine1975
But that doesn't explain why the ingroup and outgroup follow along a nation's
borders.

 _> exactly what Ozymandias does in the Watchmen._

Although Dr Manhatten casts doubt on whether he achieves that goal for a
longer period of time when he last talks to Ozymandias.

~~~
coldtea
> _But that doesn 't explain why the ingroup and outgroup follow along a
> nation's borders._

They follow across MANY borders, including a nation's. They follow family
borders, neighborhood borders, city borders, county borders, state borders,
nation borders and even wider cultural borders (e.g. US, UK and Australia
closer to each other than to Peru or Brazil, and vice versa).

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ris
Hold on, are we talking about patriotism or nationalism? There's a difference.

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dang
The article goes into this distinction in detail.

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sanxiyn
Betteridge's law of headlines failed, because the answer is yes.

All of Big Five personality traits are heritable, with about 50% heritability.
So this is pretty much expected result, not a surprising result.

~~~
vox_mollis
It's surprising to the mainstream left, which is as ignorant of current
behavioral genetics research as the mainstream right is of climate change
research.

Edit: downvoters, I'm not trying to be explicitly political here. I'm really
just making a broader point that the uncritical embrace of the blank slate
hypothesis is the reason this is surprising, in the same way that confirmation
of AGW would be surprising to a climate change denier.

~~~
facetube
You're being downvoted because you're being overbroad IMO. To claim the entire
"mainstream left" is ignorant of behavioural genetics research is demonstrably
false and may be viewed as being politically motivated.

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crusso
Notice that you had to add "entire" to vox's statement to make your point.
Vox's point was a bit of a generalization, but your argument used an unfair
exaggeration.

~~~
facetube
Was he talking about only a portion of the "mainstream left"? These are
individual American citizens with a variety of competencies and experience;
it's unclear to me why there'd be a connection between this and one's
political beliefs.

~~~
crusso
Even the modifier "mainstream" suggests a subset of some larger "left".

If you understood his similar comment about the "mainstream right", that
should give you an idea of how he drew the connection for the "mainstream
left".

