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You don't seem to have the confidence to stand up for your opinions. That's fine. It just happens that I think small minded patriotism is a sign of intellectual weakness and I'm happy to call that out when I encounter it.
I wouldn't bother to defend nationalism, the core support seems to be petty patriotism and beliefs held by people without much experience of the wider world. It's a dog whistle for idiots.
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I actually don't have many strongly held opinions, but I don't follow where you get this from:
You don't seem to have the confidence to stand up for your opinions.
I don't think I'd be posting in this thread at all if I didn't have enough confidence.
Is all patriotism petty? Is there any other kind of nationalism except that which asserts superiority over foreigners?
Is that really all it is? I agree the media and the politicians have a lot to answer for (don't they always) but is that really all there is to it?
For me personally "being English" and my relationship to that is something I've had to grapple with quite a lot. I know others who take it completely for granted and never question it, and others who feel absolutely no connection with it and consider it utterly irrelevant. It's a construct, but it still matters.