Every schoolchild in the United States starting at the age of ~six is expected (but not legally required) to participate in a daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
"I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."
There are a number of obvious questions about the ethics of indoctrinating children with this sort of thing, but that is left as an exercise for the reader.
I think there's a few states where it is not required. And the state requirements only apply to public schools so who knows what all the private and parochial schools are doing.
I think you're vastly overstating the social pressure. It's nothing compared to adolescent pressure to wear the right clothes and ingest the right chemicals. Among adults, the far right wingers get outraged by those who refuse while the far left wingers get outraged by the existence of the pledge. The 70 percent in the middle care far less.
Most schoolchildren do the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but in my experience, the only people who think it's some sort of dystopian practice are foreigners whose primary knowledge of America comes from watching Netflix. For actual Americans, it's a mildly respectful gesture that simply implies patriotism...and it's not a particularly huge deal.
I was referring to the portraits of Kim Il Sung an Kim Jong Il which they hang in every house (and I believe most rooms). I think that is quite comparable.
I would completely agree that the whole of "North Korean indoctrination" is worse than anything seen in mainstream USA.
I'm not claiming Americans are behind, I'm saying the pledge seems creepy from an outside perspective.
In future, when people ask me why I don't like "my team", maybe I'll just point to this thread instead of boring them again with the centuries of racist violence, in which we are still engaged to this day.
Joe McCarthy says Hi. Did you forget about the horrifying legacy of both literal and figurative witch trials? How about the US only very recently abandoning the idea that one person could own another?
The idea that patriotism is a necessity makes me nauseous, particularly given the ghastly scars of full-on repression and brutality the US wears on its face for anyone with the temerity to speak the wrong opinion.
Frankly I struggle to comprehend any other interpretation of history. Unless, of course, one is some kind of revisionist shitbird with blind spots up the wazoo.
The infantile whinge about “Eurocentrism” is characteristic of the kind of petty-minded, reflexive, and ultimately inaccurate dismissal of outsiders I’ve come to expect from authoritarian demagogues and the wannabe bullies that defend them.
All of which is to say, the fact that in the US, it’s possible to criticise the government, occurs despite the ludicrous brainwash theatrics, not because of them; and until very recently, only for a few.
I'm sorry, but if you reply in such a hostile manner, I really have no interest in a discussion. You don't seem open to actually discussing anything and would rather pontificate for upvotes.
My suggestion: read more history books and learn to appreciate the sacrifices that your forebears made so that you have the privilege of having your current opinion. A lot of people died for you to to be able to have the freedom to write unappreciative, snarky comments on the Internet. America certainly isn't perfect, but even a cursory reading of history will show you that the alternatives were far, far, worse. Unless you think Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Confederate States would have been better moral leaders?
No, wait, two worthless arguments: one, that we cannot be grateful without being patriotic; two, that the alternative is Nazis and Commies.
Both are, of course, without a shred of evidence, common sense, or reason. They come from a place that recognises only binary divisions of humanity. Us, and them.
Oh, and that false assumption that the people who salute flags get to make the moral judgements.
Since I don’t have privileged white settler ancestry but come from a long line of the stateless and persecuted, my answer is that you can shove such false dichotomies up Satan’s privilege-assuming backside, because the only thing that experience reveals is that all patriotism is tyrannical.
Ugh. That “renounce your citizenship then” jibe speaks volumes about the revulsion felt by authoritarians for nonconformists. It is bigotry 101, and repeating it labels you personally.
Fortunately, I’m perfectly capable of discharging my civic responsibilities without having to believe in some animistic delusion, any more than I need a church to supply a moral compass.
My loyalty belongs to people, not places, and to cultures, not scriptures.
In the end nations are the quintessential form of human political organization and they rest upon the ideas of shared history, culture and patriotism. Your attempts at equating patriotism with chauvinism and aggressive nationalism don't provoke revulsion, they just cause confusion as to what could move you to assert such absurdities.
Words have clear meanings. You could save everyone some time by being precise instead of launching into pointless crusades.
> nations are the quintessential form of human political organization
That is false, hubristic, tautological, and lacking in either foresight or historical perspective. Nations in their current mode of the nation-state have barely existed for a couple of centuries. Like every other construct of mankind, they will be replaced.
> they rest upon the ideas of shared history, culture and patriotism
They rest on borders demarcated by political and ethnic violence, and institutions whose primary functions are to perpetuate their own existence, maintain a ruling class, and quell the populace.
> You could save everyone some time by being precise instead of launching into pointless crusades
You don't have to respond, but I don't take instructions to shut up from someone perpetuating abusive dogma.
> Those that dislike patriotism so much should provide the ultimate proof of their beliefs and renounce their citizenship.
It’s quite clear you are not referring to single individual here but instead calling out a group and [sarcastically] suggesting they take some action. If including myself in a mentioned group is “making it about myself” and odd, I’m fine with that.
Having positive feelings towards one's country is a pretty normal, pretty emotionally healthy thing. Their absence indicates some internal or external conflict or trauma.
Individuals which are experiencing these conflicts should not condemn patriotism in sweeping generalizations. Some countries are quite fine, in spite of a chequered past and being proud of one's country can be a nice feeling.
> Having positive feelings towards one's country is a pretty normal, pretty emotionally healthy thing. Their absence indicates some internal or external conflict or trauma.
That is pub psychology at its most patronising, its most flawed, and its most self-serving.
For those of us not so indoctrinated, expressing feelings for any inanimate or noncorporeal object sounds pathological and fetishistic. Indoctrinating children into the same through repetition of a daily mantra is indistinguishable from religion. If nations were an object capable of returning your affection, the routine exploitation, injustice, violence, mismanagement and desecration of trust would make it a situation to be urgently extracted from.
Those who haven't experienced any of those things first-hand, including from the systems and institutions of nations that make the cosmically ironic claim to be the "good guys", are astonishingly, overwhelmingly, revoltingly privileged - and only a small fraction of humanity.
To sum up: patriotism is an abusive relationship with a memetic virus.
I don't think I said that the feelings have to be expressed, but they're there nevertheless. You never have positive feelings towards objects? For example when you see a beautiful sunset, or enjoy a great tool that allows you to easily get your job done? That would be very unusual... the human internal universe is immerse in feelings, we even humanize objects sometimes.
Those positive feelings are not addressed to the "nation" itself though, they're addressed to the group of people to which a person feels like they belong to, it's addressed to the culture and traditions which one feels connected to and which they enjoy with other people. Everywhere I go I see people treating their fellow citizens differently and more affectionately compared to foreigners.
I don't salute a beautiful sunset, and I don't require my children to pledge allegiance to the sun; nor would I be so crass, flippant, or despotic as to suggest - as you already did with citizenship - that someone declining to offer their loyalty to the sun deserves to be denied warmth.
Tossing around false equivalences doesn't make patriotism a sunny day.
> Everywhere I go I see people treating their fellow citizens differently and more affectionately compared to foreigners
...
If I ever need to reference a monument to unconscious bias, and to the staggering lack of self-awareness that "patriots" embody, and for a prima facie example of how structural discrimination is perpetuated even in 2020, this'll be it.
You seem to be hanging on to the "pledge of alliance" discussion with the other guy which wisely decided to cut their losses and stop responding :) You do realise you're talking to somebody else now, right?
Somebody which merely limited themselves to discussing patriotism, which doesn't require pledges. In fact I disagree with such behavior, especially when kids are required to recite them. Such things are typically encountered in undemocratic countries and they are a form of manipulation and control.
Patriotism neither requires such things, nor does it mean that those who recite such pledges are patriotic. As I've mentioned before, patriotism for me indicates positive feelings towards one's country.
Alas, I'm generally unwilling to concede retrospective attempts to move goalposts.
I don't consider this exchange to be a dialogue. Regarding the scope of audience and participation, I see remarks from six participants. I'm aware of adjacent threads addressing related topics and angles. We have undisclosed N participants that've been variously upvoting, downvoting, flagging, and vouching comments, leaving many flagged or dead (i.e. collapsed to casual visitors).
It seems to me there is no common ground on the matter between you and I, not even agreement of the parameters of discussion. A collapsed subthread whose index topic has naturally decayed from the front page lacks any prospect of additional voices, and with no opportunity I can perceive for the Hegelian dialectic to resolve otherwise, I shall break off here, and wish you (and any unseen readers that have stoically endured thus far) a good day.
Wut, that's some serious 1984 shit, where is this common?