meh, it's time mankind grew up, anyone stating to be "proud to be a/an `nationality`" is just another simpleton, it's the belief that someone, because they just so happened to be born where they did, are inherently better or more than someone who arbitrarily was born somewhere outside some geographical area.
That's BS to such a degree that it's amazing we're not actively making an effort to denationalize peoples of the world. There's nothing more damaging than having such beliefs (religion maybe, but I think I'll fold religion and nationalism into one since nationalists are often the ones to insist that a true scotsman has some specific religion).
Sure, there are differences, but they are differences that are taught and indoctrinated, not something we're born with, and we can "simply" stop doing that.
A nationality is always connected to a (system of) government, representing a set of shared values in any democratic system.
The best attempt at denationalization right now is the EU and their intent on creating a European superstate, not unlike the USA. Even still, I share a great deal of values with most of the EU citizens and will oppose the formation of an actual unified European state until at least values like "democracy" and the trias politica are shared across the country.
Perhaps total denationalization is a nice end goal for humanity, but it's unattainable as long as there are still significant groups in the world who don't believe in things like "women are equal to men".
I agree that connecting a nationality to words like "true" or "proud to be a" is often problematic, but you cannot ignore that there are differences between regions. You can pretty clearly see the border of Scotland on a Brexit vote map, for example; all of Scotland was, on average, anti-Brexit, and most of England was, on average, pro-Brexit. Does that mean that all Scots are inherently pro-EU? Of course not. But erasing borders will change very little about the attachment and emotions people feel toward the bit of land they were born in.
I can't agree with "A nationality is always connected to a (system of) government" - while a nation is a more political thing than simply an ethnic group, the core of many (most?) nations is not a government but rather people united by culture, language, ethnicity and history; territory and government are secondary aspects. If we look at the age of nationalism, Italian and German nations are good examples - the nations formed/consolidated long before they got united governments; the late 19th century pan-Slavic movement was arguably an expression of nationalism that transcended Russian Empire; if we look at nationalism in Latin America, it again precedes formation of the respective governments and survives substantial changes in political values. Etc.
Nationality is not formed or defined by a (system of) government, quite the contrary, nations have a certain tendency to obtain a separate (system of) government - the desire for national self-determinism works against government systems that include other nations. The dissolution of Yugoslavia and USSR are some examples, but the instability of various regions in Middle East and Africa are also in part caused by national identities that do not map to the post-colonial set of governments and borders.
Furthermore, the national unity and values is not really defined by the current political system. Many nations have had multiple huge changes in political regimes over the last hundred years while unquestionably staying the same nation, and political values generally are not the core thing forming a national identity.
This is such an HN comment. For 95% of the people alive right now, it matters very much where they live and what nationality they are. See: every migrant crisis. Or people who have a bank account insured by their government. Or anyone on any kind of social security. etc etc etc
The 0.1% can get in their jet and go to New Zealand, or buy a Swiss passport with BTC...so sure, place is irrelevant to them. Not so for everyone else.
The idea of escaping from whatever is currently a dirty hellhole to the magical land of X where everything is better, is exactly the same kind of backward thinking, what you're describing with the 0.1% is no different than all other migration towards greener pastures, and it shows why we can't continue like this..
More or less the entire world is going to turn into a trashfire unless we unite and fix it, so that everywhere is a nice place to live, nationalism won't fix it, it prevents it from being fixed, because we've divided the globe into more and less desirable geometric shapes, it didn't work, next.
I don't actually think one can watch too much ST ;)
I am fully aware that what I describe cannot just be done, but it does not mean it's not the right thing to strive towards. Even the countries we have now have been split up into smaller, warring tribes if you go back far enough. It's always been the resistance, the hardships that have forced us to cooperate, and it mostly still is. Climate activism is a good example, there's a common enemy, "clearly" defined rules of what is right and wrong, it gets people together, even across nationality and religion.
But while there are lots of proof that people can cooperate against a common enemy, there's no proof they can't cooperate without one, oftentimes it seems most resistance to that idea is people refusing to believe that others can do it, and then the suggested change itself becomes the common enemy, and prevents it from happening.. There may be some what to make people agree, it's just not been found yet.
I'm sympathic, but it would be very easy to fix the reason why people feel compelled to emigrate in the first place. Silly "America First"ers don't realize that Nativism and (actually good, perhaps a rarity in practice) foreign aid go hand-in-hand.
Sorry, I don't want to live in the hell scape you described. I enjoy having a national identity (language, ethnicity, food, architecture, history, etc). It gives me a sense of place and I view my country as basically my extended family (it's a small northern European country). If you have peoples from all over the world moving to my country then that sense of brotherhood breaks down. Sorry, but tribalism is real and it's natural. Maybe that's why places like the US that have all sorts of peoples trying to live together is much less cohesive than my country.
Fuzzy boundaries are still boundaries. Everything isn't a uniform blob. I don't understand how people can both glorify differences and pretend they don't exist.
Why do you view only your country as your extended family? Are your countrymen somehow better than the rest of the people on the planet? Why can't your sense of place be the entire world? How is that not better? To be able to show an entire planet to your children and ttell them, this here, is your home world, these are your people ?
A tribe of a million members? Please! A tribe can't be larger the amount of people who can know each other, everything beyond that is something else, it's civilization.
> Why can't your sense of place be the entire world? How is that not better? To be able to show an entire planet to your children and ttell them, this here, is your home world, these are your people ?
That would mean that I'm equally at home in a crowded Asian city, an African village, or any small town in a flyover state as I am in a Western city. I'm not.
Because visually the people in my country look the same as me, we share a similar history for many thousands of years, we have mostly very similar world view, etc. A person from India for example is going to look different, have a different religion, different history, and different world view.
Everyone looks visually different, and you will encounter, in your own country, a fellow countryman, or woman, whose parents are born in your country, who have the same nationality and legal status as yourself, but a different ancestry, maybe from India, that person will then, in your mind, not be your peer, simply because they look different? Even though you share culture and history and upbringing?
That attitude will be harder and harder to defend, as more and more phenotypes enter your society.
You may even find that your neighbor, who you've known your whole life, actually does not have any religion, or a different one, even though his ancestry goes back forever as natives of your geographical area, then you will no longer count him as your countryman?
So by following this train of logic, and remembering at each point that there really is no such thing as a true Scotsman, the logical reduction of this is, that what makes someone a citizen of your country is entirely and only defined by whether or not they hold a passport from your country, or whatever national identity identifier your country has.
Now, fast forward some generations of actually educating children, instead of indoctrinating them to think they're better or more right than others, but that people are people, and planet earth is home to people, and you end up with a society such as your current one (without the religion and racism), but one that entails the entire planet.
Show me a country, any country, and I will show you country.numberOfCitizens indiduals who actually don't agree on as much as they fool themselves into believing that they do, and yet somehow manage to find some mutual respect and regard for oneanother. There's no good (future) reason to base that regard on citizenship rather than on being human.
That's BS to such a degree that it's amazing we're not actively making an effort to denationalize peoples of the world. There's nothing more damaging than having such beliefs (religion maybe, but I think I'll fold religion and nationalism into one since nationalists are often the ones to insist that a true scotsman has some specific religion).
Sure, there are differences, but they are differences that are taught and indoctrinated, not something we're born with, and we can "simply" stop doing that.