For me personally, I fundamentally disagree with the concepts of nationalism and patriotism. Tying our pride to an imaginary concept of a “nation” just further serves to divide people into arbitrary groups. When a nation is criticized for the actions of the whole, such as when people from other nations say (rightfully) that “Americans are racist, uneducated bigots”, people of that nation tend to take it as personal attacks against them, clouding judgement and diverting discourse away from the actual problem into a defensive justification on how your criticism isn’t a personal attack.
So let them take “patriotic high ground”. It is not something I respect. My goal isn’t to fix “America”. America, the state apparatus that comprises the “nation”, is the enemy, it is the entire problem, and I wish to see it go the way of the dodo. I don’t care if I live in America. I didn’t ask to be born here under this regime. The idea that it is a “multicultural, immigrant nation” is a whitewashing of how this country was founded in genocide and slavery. It is only “multicultural” because of colonial exploitation of minorities and natives. It doesn’t do so by choice and never had without a whole lot of kicking and screaming.
That’s a reasonable premise, I get it. Borders are just imaginary lines, I agree in theory. But in practice, patriotism (as opposed to nationalism, and I do think we should differentiate) is a positive concept insofar as it overlaps with us - we who are alive now - making good choices about the direction of our arbitrarily-defined geographic region and being proud of the ones we could accomplish.
I think your issue with how the country was founded gives too much power to those who you don’t agree with and who shouldn’t have power over you. Whether the nation was founded on exploitation, we are not them - you refuse to be constrained by arbitrary geographic boundaries, for the contradictory reason that you feel constrained by arbitrary temporal boundaries, linking yourself and your dislike of American symbolism with what people hundreds of years ago did, with no relation to you except general genetic lineage.
That isn’t to say we deny that it happened, don’t teach it, learn from it - obviously systemic racism is an ongoing effect that is both traceable and related statistically to that founding. We aren’t living in those times, but those times echo in our time. We aren’t culpable, but we are responsible, only because nobody is left to deal with it.
But by refusing to take ownership of America, you are also ceding it. You may feel good about not being associated with the messy parts, but I would argue many who do this do it because they don’t want to take on the burden, not because they are taking the claimed moral high ground.
For me personally, I fundamentally disagree with the concepts of nationalism and patriotism. Tying our pride to an imaginary concept of a “nation” just further serves to divide people into arbitrary groups. When a nation is criticized for the actions of the whole, such as when people from other nations say (rightfully) that “Americans are racist, uneducated bigots”, people of that nation tend to take it as personal attacks against them, clouding judgement and diverting discourse away from the actual problem into a defensive justification on how your criticism isn’t a personal attack.
So let them take “patriotic high ground”. It is not something I respect. My goal isn’t to fix “America”. America, the state apparatus that comprises the “nation”, is the enemy, it is the entire problem, and I wish to see it go the way of the dodo. I don’t care if I live in America. I didn’t ask to be born here under this regime. The idea that it is a “multicultural, immigrant nation” is a whitewashing of how this country was founded in genocide and slavery. It is only “multicultural” because of colonial exploitation of minorities and natives. It doesn’t do so by choice and never had without a whole lot of kicking and screaming.
That’s a reasonable premise, I get it. Borders are just imaginary lines, I agree in theory. But in practice, patriotism (as opposed to nationalism, and I do think we should differentiate) is a positive concept insofar as it overlaps with us - we who are alive now - making good choices about the direction of our arbitrarily-defined geographic region and being proud of the ones we could accomplish.
I think your issue with how the country was founded gives too much power to those who you don’t agree with and who shouldn’t have power over you. Whether the nation was founded on exploitation, we are not them - you refuse to be constrained by arbitrary geographic boundaries, for the contradictory reason that you feel constrained by arbitrary temporal boundaries, linking yourself and your dislike of American symbolism with what people hundreds of years ago did, with no relation to you except general genetic lineage.
That isn’t to say we deny that it happened, don’t teach it, learn from it - obviously systemic racism is an ongoing effect that is both traceable and related statistically to that founding. We aren’t living in those times, but those times echo in our time. We aren’t culpable, but we are responsible, only because nobody is left to deal with it.
But by refusing to take ownership of America, you are also ceding it. You may feel good about not being associated with the messy parts, but I would argue many who do this do it because they don’t want to take on the burden, not because they are taking the claimed moral high ground.