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Nationalism and a national identity is no use to make a success out of a country so it's not much use to me.
Interesting. Can I ask how you’ve come to this conclusion? Larger nations like the US, Mexico and Brazil seem to rely on a shared national identity for their development, which is contrary to your theory. I’m interested in learning more about post-national options though.
Adhiero-
A problem with nationalism in England is perhaps that it looks back to the past rather than to the future - it's based on out-dated and fantastical ideas of exceptionalism and has become a refuge for those that dislike the modern, global world.
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Their 'national' identity is based on what? It helps how?
It seems so simple to me. Nationalism is a dog whistle for petty patriotism. The same people who believe it's useful are likely to believe that they are better in their village than people over the county line. It's useful for politicians to manipulate people.
Look at Jamaica in the run up to independence. How it was going to change Jamaica, massive surge of nationalistic pride followed by the deepest economic depression Jamaicans could have imagined. Many years of extreme poverty and gang violence based around political parties. The nationalism dissolved without helping anyone.
I'm not really interested in discussing it ad nauseam, it seems so clear to me that discounting it as a force for good makes sense.
carson
Airhead
I could have phrased that better. I see this quite a bit with friends who were not born here, they are less likely to take the fight to the idiots. I understand why. There's so little intelligence to go around in a massive part of the UK population, it really helps if you've grown up here because the idiots don't get to tell you that you don't belong enough to have a low opinion of England.
I don't mean to single you out for criticism, it just seemed that you are being thoughtful respecting people you disagree with. That's not my approach, not for age or experience or illness.
Anyone who thinks that England is better in any way than the rest of the world needs to be told to pipe down. Not in the Olympics or engineering or language or philosophy or fighting or any other matter are we a universally superior country. So those opinions can get in the sea. Nationalism and a national identity is no use to make a success out of a country so it's not much use to me.
Yes, it was used to dismantle colonialism but it wasn't the successful part of it, countries just had to work to shape the economic and cultural life of the country and that had everything to do with recognising and building bridges with other nations, collaborating through trade, science and culture.
I was just suggesting that you have not yet reached the point where you are confident enough to tell English idiots that to their face based on what you had said about respecting different opinions.