

Why I'm Not Proud To Be French - marcgg
http://marcgg.com/blog/2013/06/24/not-proud-to-be-french/

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jvzr
Disclaimer: I'm French too.

I think Marc nails it. Being born here rather than in the US means that one
will have a different view of pride. French aren't proud of being french,
French don't hang flags in their yard nor do they sing the national anthem
each morning in school. Heck, we even allow (or rather _do not disapprove of_
) some of our footballers to _not_ sing the anthem at the start of the matches
(mind the double negative). We like our country and we wish great things for
it, but we are not proud of it. We were born and raised in a country that has
seen some serious shit and done some terrible things, things that we learn of
at school.

Final point: the US (as a country) are young and "innocent". France is an old
dinosaur in comparison.

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toretore
This guy gets it. Being proud of one's nationality makes no sense. You have no
right to take pride in something you didn't have a part in. Likewise, you have
no obligation to feel shame for something you didn't take part in, like a
country's wars or human rights abuses.

Attaching your sense of pride and self worth on something you can't control is
a weakness. It doesn't matter what it is, it could be a nation, a political
ideology, a religion or a football team. As long as you don't control it,
you're subject to its inevitable changes whether good or bad - your sense of
pride or shame is outside of your control.

To be independent is to be strong. Your country maintains secret torture
facilities or spies on its citizens? Not your fault; you didn't approve of it
and that's as far as your obligation goes. You can be proud of your work to
oppose it, but the shame belongs to the perpetrators.

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LoganCale
I'm American, and I agree completely. One should reserve pride for things they
had control over achieving, not that which is a coincidence of birth.

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voneger
Would say I'm proud of seing a fellow french citizen nail the "nationality
pride" idiocy, but I'm scared of creating a paradox that could swallow the
universe and make deloreans apear in my living room.

Nationality pride is a refuge, an ego booster, and a few
psychologists/sociologists/philosophers have tackled the subject with great
insight.

And I believe it is sound to outgrow it, as OP did.

But still, we've got the best cheese, don't we? ;)

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mathattack
Humanism trumps nationalism. This is a good creed, that can keep us out of
many wars. I still think the author should be proud of French food and French
culture.

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marcgg
I'm proud of French food when manage to cook something good :)

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krumiro79
I totally agree. I'm not proud to be Italian either, but I find myself to be
happy as an Italian when Italians excel in music, food or science for
example..

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SloughFeg
This sort of opinion hinges in the assumption that people are completely
independent from whatever environment they've lived in. Is it also absurd for
a graduate to be proud of his alma mater or a son to be proud of his parent?
Pride from both of these stems from how their influence added to you as a
person, not just because you happened to be around them.

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tribeofone
And what does this have to do with hacking?

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marcgg
not much, but it's pretty much established that HN covers a group of topics
that interests a given community.

Right now on the homepage there's an article on "Alcoholism in Antarctica",
discussions about royalties or implications of being under state
surveillance...

Looking at your profile I can even say that you already knew that, seeing that
you submitted an article about advertising and another one about world ward 2.

