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fourth of july
October 2009 
What does patriotism mean to you?
Posted on Jul 4th, 2007
by 
Goddess2day
Goddess2day
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for July 04, 2007:
The word patriotism means imprisonment for me. It’s a word that makes me feel selfish. It spells claustrophobia; it’s a dead end, a full stop to loving thy neighbor…
It’s too small of a word for me. I need a bigger one to encompass the whole universe and beyond it. And why not, isn’t love and compassion like a lit candle…capable of lighting up the whole world without diminishing the light from the first candle? As for sacrificing my life for a country…what a waste…I could do more stuff alive than dead...and yet I don't find it amazing…that it takes the dead to spur the living into compassionate action…
But I suppose the word “Patriotism” was born to teach us to love our own and then gradually extend the love to encompass the whole world….but hello, has that been happening? In fact, the meaning of the word is getting narrower by the minute.
So! If that same love and self-sacrificial feelings we have for one part of the universe could extend to the whole of it, then where’s the harm?
Access: Public
Here here!
I will testify to that. No less I would have expected from one such Goddess of Karma.
Cheers.
Hey there! What a lovely comment. Thanks for reading me. And you know what that means? I will be reading you soon! :-)
There are some beautiful sentiments in the post, but I would respectfully submit that there is a healthy patriotism that is like the love one feels for one’s family. In that vein, it surely is not selfish to feel a special affection for those closest to you. Our love for humanity in the abstract does not trump our love for those particular human beings closest to us. And so it is with the feeling one has for one’s country, or countries.
Hey Anthony…Thanks for the insightful comment….Bravo! I totally see what you are saying…but don't you think we are capable of loving humanity in the exact same way we love our family and those closest to us…? Not just “special affection” and not a love that trump but one that remains sweetly equal…
And why do we love our family more than any other? Is it because they have earned our love? Or is this love unconditional?. Well…if it is the latter, then … what's preventing us from loving the whole wide world and back again?
GoK, I would insist that we are not capable of loving all of humanity in the exact same way we love those closest to us. We may feel some generalized love or goodwill, but people are individuals, “humanity” is a collective term that abstracts all those particular individuals. Thus, we may emanate love in the direction of everyone, but while the feeling or action of love may be real, the individuals remain theoretical in a very important way. Committing oneself to love some generalized lot of people that you believe are out there is miles away from the attachment one feels to actual people.
The abstract kind of love is also different in that we are deepened by the give and take of an actual relationship, by the duties to our friends, spouses, children, and by what we go through together, for better and for worse. That indefinite mass of individuals that we hypostatize as “humanity” makes no such claims on us. Any commitments we believe we have originate with us. This may explain why some people love humanity but don’t much like individuals!
Hey you…
Thanks for lighting up an interesting angle…
Yes, you have indeed dredged up many points…and they are sharp enough to pierce open third eyes everywhere. However, would you know for certain whether these thoughts of yours will remain the same ten years from now?
However, would you know for certain whether these thoughts of yours will remain the same ten years from now?
Well, I couldn’t know that. However, in the absence of severe head trauma or death, I think it’s probable that my thoughts will resemble those I’ve expressed. It seems more likely that they would deepen along those lines rather than change.
The reason is that it took a lot of work to arrive at where I stand now. It seems to me that the ideas I express are a step above the feeling, which I share, of generalized love to “humanity.” The way the human mind works causes us to think on a generalized, idealizing plain. There’s no way out of it, but we can be aware of our generalizing nature and correct its imperfections through analysis of the way we think and empirical evidence that falsifies many particular generalizations.
First of all, it's believed by some that “love” is an illusion. And I could also debate that it exists. However, for the sake of this article, I will pretend it exists…in abundance…everywhere.
Second, let me assure you that I agree that we do feel a generalized love for society overall. (Imo, that last paragraph of yours sums it up brilliantly.) But I can also see that loving the entire world as we love our own child is not an impossible thing…
So why do the majority of us only feel a generalized love for the world? Is it because we believe that we cannot afford to give more? Is it because we feel safer this way? Is it because we feel we have a better chance at survival? Or is it because the majority of people out there has yet to earn our love? Perhaps…all of the above and more…
And also, perhaps it's not our thoughts that change at all. Perhaps, thoughts are like stars…we visit them temporarily as we orbit the galaxy…they are not ours…they do not belong to us…we acquire them as we move along on our journey through life…we pick them out carefully as we pick out the clothes we wear…
So why do we hang on to them as if they are a lifeline when we know that we have outgrown them? My sympathy abounds on this note. It's not an easy thing. To move away from our early thougths is almost like the Earth trying to ditch the damn Sun…She will perish…if she suceeds in doing this…or at least that's as far as our minds can see…
If we allow oursleves to touch the world, all six billion pieces of it…don't you think that they will love us in return? Is “love” a give and take? If we give our unconditional love to the tribe next door, in times of famine, we might have to share our food with them…and that…alone tampers with our survival. If we love the whole world…will it grow? Or will it stagnate? Who will we wager war with?
Why is it such an impossiblity to love the whole world? Robin Sharma wrote on his current blog…. “if you intersect with 10 new people every day (from the people that you meet at work to the clerk at the grocery store), at the end of just one month you will have had the opportunity to have had a positive influence on about 300 human beings. After a year, over 3000. After ten years - get this - 30,000.”
Consider this:-
Anne was diagnosed with a rare disorder. So rare in fact, that she's one in three billion people…(hypothetically). Her problem is fixable but she needs to find a bone marrow. The medical world has given up on her. They knew it was futile to even try because Anne only as one year to find the matching ingredient in the proverbial haystack.
So…out of the goodness of his heart, Anne's husband set out to save the love of his life because with Anne, he can see that all things are possible…they are mouths to feed, people to enlighten, universes to love…and more… So he began a mass campaign… He told people by word-of-mouth, he emailed newsgroups everwhere, placed ads on billboards and exhausted every possible venue…and the words he used aroused the kindness in hearts everywhere….and doners began to flock hospitals ….paying out of their own pockets…in the hope that they would be the one to save Anne…
And in the nick of time, a match was indeed found.
Do you think that Anne's still capable of feeling a generalized love for humanity? Or will she be so moved that she will dedicate her new life to giving back this love to the entire world?
PS: Hey…my sincere thanks to you for bringing your views to me…I have been enlightened more than I care to admit…