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I mean sure if you join the french foriegn legion you might not have the same patriotic sense but I tell you this Patriotism includes friendship, Loyalty and companionship. I have to run cause work calls but your statement confuses me a bit. You claim that to be patrotic means only when you fight on your own soil because your born there?

To take this down to a rudimentary level, it's the pack-animal thing. Having spent time in international armed taskforces, I can tell you that your little unit becomes your own little "nation," and the cause you're fighting for becomes your "national pride." It's all animal instinct. If the world ended tomorrow, and we all had to start again, we would still huddle together in small, select groups of people. Not because of where we came from, but who we are inside. A tribe is a tribe. It's the oldest concept known to life, and to think that it will just pack up and go away because we've somehow "evolved," is the dream of utopia. It's a nice thought, but I would think that the last 10 years have shown us that a sense of national unity and tribe-mentality is even more present today than ever, despite for instance the breaking down of borders in Europe. It's a matter of soul and identity. We, like wolves, apes, whales, whathaveyou, yearn to be a part of something that is exclusively ours, and no ammount of "evolved" ideology will change that. It's in our genes. We will truly have to take a humongous step on the evolutionary ladder to get rid of that, and then we won't be homo sapiens anymore. Just take a look at the cities we're living in. You have ethnic enclaves in every city in the modern world. That's just the way it is. Integration is at a standstill, and if the big city is a mirror of a world, then there will always be a Chinatown, a Harlem, a Germantown and so forth.

Sorry for the rant, but IMHO it's more important to learn to live together, than to BE each other.

@Moonbiter - I agree with you so completely its scary.

While on a simple non theological level I consider Patriotism just something I enjoy. The flag is not some roman transcribed idealogy but rather a symbol of what I enjoy.

But on a deeper much more "Real" level your definitly right, we are animals protecting our home. Our tribe if you will. I agree in a million ways about the fact of believing we some how surpassed such needs is an utopian dream. While you might share these views I do not know of you share my lack of faith in such knowledge, I do not believe we are the smartest Animal on earth rather the most complicated and because of such in the end we will destroy ourself in an attempt to preserve ourselves.

Okay, first I need to apologise for my retarded English. It's Friday, the sprog's with the grandparents, and since it's my first weekend being a non-dad since Here There Be Dragons, I've started dipping into the grape already.

Now, that being said, I spent four years in New Orleans. While there, I rode on a bus all over the nation, and saw a lot of "normal" Americana. Somebody mentioned "Illegals," well, they tend to be the most patriotic of the lot, having sacrificed virtually EVERYTHING to get into the place where everything is supposed to be sooo much better. And NOBODY is going to make them change their mind about the USA being heaven. To do that would be to admit defeat, and that's not a thing we do easily.
The America I knew is definetly not on today. The current government gets away with stuff that would have had them up on charges 15 years ago. That's another discussion, but it gets me to a point: I once predicted that the USA would go the way of the Soviet Union. I still stand by that. History has proven that there are more differences between the various states than in any war-torn part of the rest of the world. The one thing that keeps the whole ramshackle union together, is the pride of being American. The only reason why Texas or California hasn't proclaimed their independence, is the sheer pig-headed stubborn pride of being a part of the "greatest nation on earth." Period. I was born in a country that is no more, the son of a woman who is now without a nation of birth. It existed through force and the mind of one man, for nigh on 60 years, but when the will and the drive to be one nation was banished by basic human tribe-mentality, they all drew back to their camps and started shooting at each other. Neighbours who had lived together as a unity for 3 generations suddenly became something so monstrous it makes my mom cry if I even mention it.
@Thug, I guess we agree on a lot of stuff, but I'm a cynic and I guess you're a patriot. That creates fodder for some interesting discussions, no?

@Moon different upbringings for sure. I've lived a comfortable gifted life in beautiful Southern California.

LOL! Don't misunderstand me. I was BORN there, I didn't grow up there, though my ancestry(sp) has made me a pretty soul-wrenching part of the recent developments. However, I grew up in the most sheltered dollhouse of a nation there is. Oh, and I have a horrendous bunch of relatives in the mountains outside Escondido..

Good to hear!

I spent a good deal of time growing up in...Japan. Okinawa to be precise. Yes, as a child I picked up a portion of the Japanese language from friends whose mothers were native to the island, and had married American servicemen stationed there. I then spent a great deal of time growing up in...the Philippines. Clark AirForce Base to be precise. Since Mah and I are so close in age, it would have been neat-o to have known him back then. Ah well, if I remember correctly, Maharlika himself is not from the island of Luzon, where Clark AFB was located.

The majority of my exposure to my home country did not take place until I was nearly out of my teens. Most of those years were spent living in....Germany. West Germany at the time to be precise. Beer. Metal concerts. The first Monsters of Rock concert I ever went to was there (woot).

So, I am somewhat confused. I grew up watching Japanese robot cartoons in the 1970's that were banned in many countries at the time because they were considered to contain an excess of graphic violence. I watched San Miguel beer commericals on Filipino television - Mag Beer Muna Tayo. I also watched Starsky and Hutch reruns on AFRTS (American Forces Radio and Television Service) over and over, which would come on right after Gilligan's Island. I had to look out for cobras (or a snake very similar to them, maybe Mah could refresh my memory here) in the backyard during the monsoon season, the rains would drive them out of their lairs at times (I used to fantasize of one day owning a mongoose, so I could sick him on the cobras). Monkeys would raid the trash dumpsters at the school I went to on base....

By the time I showed up permanently on American soil, I was 5 years behind culturally and basically had no clue.

Did I turn Japanese? I really think so!

Originally posted by RandomThug
While on a simple non theological level I consider Patriotism just something I enjoy. The flag is not some roman transcribed idealogy but rather a symbol of what I enjoy.

And you were taught to think that, just as the Roman citizen was taught to think his nation was the greatest, and wonderful; and just as the consolidating leaders of the early Renaissance states did the same thing. @RT, patriotism simply isn't natural. It isn't something you develop on your own, because 1) it's right, and 2) it springs from some mystical inner thing. It's stuff you believe because others wanted you to believe it, to fight and die (or alternatively, kill) for some leader's goals. There's no getting around that.

Well, I immigrated with my parents to the US, and experienced the negative side in my early years. With this, and knowing my family's history, I've become quite the cynic, and am quite suspicious of patriotism.

Originally posted by fable
And you were taught to think that, just as the Roman citizen was taught to think his nation was the greatest, and wonderful; and just as the consolidating leaders of the early Renaissance states did the same thing. @RT, patriotism simply isn't natural. It isn't something you develop on your own, because 1) it's right, and 2) it springs from some mystical inner thing. It's stuff you believe because others wanted you to believe it, to fight and die (or alternatively, kill) for some leader's goals. There's no getting around that.

I realize this was directed at RandomThug, but since it is a universal statement, I feel I should respond: nonsense. Patriotism is not at all times and in all circumstances forced down on the citizenry from the top down. We are not all victims of some vast indoctrination just because we feel pride for the place we are, or the place we have been. As I state in my earlier post in the thread: I have an absolutely clear understanding of the positive and negative aspects of the US. But I do love this nation for all the reasons I have stated. Reagan didn't make me think these things. Nor Clinton, nor Karl Rove, nor anyone else. That may be your jaundiced view of patriotism, fable, but it ain't mine - and I know far better than you what is in my head, and how it got there.

Originally posted by Lazarus
Reagan didn't make me think these things. Nor Clinton, nor Karl Rove, nor anyone else. That may be your jaundiced view of patriotism, fable, but it ain't mine - and I know far better than you what is in my head, and how it got there.

With respect, this is also the argument that has been repeated for ages by everybody who has willingly marched to the insane tune piped by their national leaders, whenever that insanity was pointed out to them. I am logical; I think for myself. Nobody could put one over on me. We, thre Romans, are the freest people in the world, with the best laws, because I know it. Just as we, the English, own France by right of our sovreign's being the formerly Count of Normandie, there; and we'll die to prove it! Nobody had to tell me these things. I sorted them out on my own. Anybody who says otherwise is either a damned cynic, or working for the other side.

Okay: fine. You're incredibly knowledgeable, you know all the inner workings of your government, you've never believed what you've been told, and research the facts challenging your dearly held beliefs all the time. You have never made mistakes by accepting what you were told as fact without checking those facts against sources that completely disagree with the original. You are utterly unlike the hundreds of millions of Americans for example who accepted LBJ's claim that North Vietnam had lauched an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin; or that the South Vietnamese people loved their government, which was an upstanding model of democracy. For the rest of us, I can only acknowledge that 1) I was taught patriotism through standard classroom textbooks proporting to be history, and beginning in elementary school, all the way up through high school; 2) so, according to what I've been told by my nieces and nephew, were they; 3) examples of similar books exist in German, English, French, etc, and can be purchased in flea markets in their native countries; 4) patriotism simply doesn't exist when it isn't taught to youth before "the age of logic," because there's no evidence of it in cultures where it hasn't been inculcated in youth.

Originally posted by fable
...Okay: fine. You're incredibly knowledgeable, you know all the inner workings of your government, you've never believed what you've been told, and you challenge every idea you have constantly. You're the only person who is the absolute master of your personal ship.

Now you're getting the idea. Seriously, though, I have to ask: do you believe in free will? Do you believe that you have been taught patriotism. Was it something inescapably indoctrinated into you? From what I read here, it seems to me that you are rejecting the very idea of patriotism as a factor in your life. So we can turn your rather flippant remarks right around: "Okay: fine. You're incredibly knowledgeable, you know all the inner workings of your government, you've never believed what you've been told, and you challenge every idea you have constantly. You're the only person who is the absolute master of your personal ship" ... because you haven't fallen for for the patriotism schtick, and you are not patriotic. Which I can fully believe - but then I would request that you show those of us who are on the other side the same respect.

Originally posted by fable
For the rest of us, I can only acknowledge that 1) I was taught patriotism through standard classroom textbooks in high school; so, according to what I've been told by my nieces and nephew, were they; 2) patriotism simply doesn't exist when it isn't taught in youth before "the age of logic," because there's no evidence of it in cultures where it hasn't been taught.

1) I was taught lots of stuff in high school. (I don't remember most of it.) So what? Again: is a high school textbook some kind of inescapable indoctrination?

2) So ... you extrapolate from this "no evidence of it in cultures where it hasn't been taught" that where it exists it simply has to be some form of indoctrination? Personally, I view the world as a bit more complex than that.

But, of course, everything I have said is ... exactly what some mindless drone of the United States of Amerikkka would say when pressed on their views of patriotism. He's right! I've been brainwashed!!!!

EDIT: Stop editing your posts, fable!! You changed your stuff while I was writing my reply. Ah, well. I'm not gonna bother to update. Too lazy. I was probably indoctrinated into laziness, too.

Originally posted by Lazarus
Seriously, though, I have to ask: do you believe in free will?

I believe that the ability to think can be severely damaged at an early age if children are taught blind acceptance of a host of ideas; and that if you parrot something within a culture often enough, it will come to be believed when it has absolutely no foundation in reality. Levi-Strauss (and many other anthropologists and historians) has published some fascinating studies on this, though I suspect the cultural paradigm which will most strike home for people is Orwell's 1984. I've seen, heard, and read far too many examples of very sane people who accept what they are told, because it is comfortable, longstanding within their lives, and plays upon their finest emotions, to feel otherwise.

I respect people, Lazarus. I do not automatically respect ideas, and I will trash ideas that I think deserve it. If I had known you were so intimately affected by your liberatarian beliefs I would not have spoken so candidly about the books you recommended in the past; but that wouldn't have changed my opinion of them. And my feeling that way, in no way lowers the esteem I feel for you. Ideas are not what we are. They are ballast we take on board our personal ships, and need to be constantly assessed by our interior bursars for soundness. If they are truly inspected and found to be unworthy, they need to be cast overboard. Such, at least, is my opinion.

1) I was taught lots of stuff in high school. (I don't remember most of it.) So what? Again: is a high school textbook some kind of inescapable indoctrination?

Governments would enthusiastically say Yes. Japanese textbooks uniformly excise the nastiness committed by Japanese troops during WWII. If this method of reinventing the past was not regarded as an effective tool of indoctrination, it would not be used--that stands to reason. But let's keep in mind, we're not discussing an isolated textbook, but an entire curricula of textbooks stretching through at least a decade of youth, before children have learned to doubt whatever they hear. These formative years have an enormous impact on the beliefs that people harbor all their lives, and refuse to question unless the world is falling apart around them--and some, not even then.

Do you believe that most people regularly reexamine the foundation principles of their lives, for their soundness? Remember, we are not all logic. We are creatures of emotion; and all of us can perform very complex logical tasks without reference to an underlying residue of illogical precepts that we've accumulated from our earliest years. These earliest notions don't begin in high school, but back in elementary school. That's where you catch kids, where you get them to accept basic concepts as immutables. Catch 'em at a point where you control nearly all they learn, and then maintain the rhetoric.

It doesn't even have to be taught in a school, not in cultures where the literary rate is extremely low. In such places, these beliefs are passed along in what anthropologists refer to as the Oral Repository of Knowledge. I know that sounds worse than it is , but it accounts for the way for example that so many large majorities within feudal modalities have tolerated inhuman conditions while the sliver of people at the top used 90%+ of the wealth of the land--because they were told all their lives that this is the way such things were meant to be. It's nearly impossible to break out of that kind of box if it's formed early, and becomes part of your inner core.

2) So ... you extrapolate from this "no evidence of it in cultures where it hasn't been taught" that where it exists it simply has to be some form of indoctrination? Personally, I view the world as a bit more complex than that.

Occam's Razor. You don't need an extremely complex theory to explain patriotism--and no one has yet disproved the evidence presented in the societies that have been studied, past and present, by cultural anthropologists. If you're a lot more complex in your ideas than they are, good on you. I have personally visited some of the cultures they've referred to, and can testify that the information they presented was accurate. If that makes me simple, so be it.

But you, on the other hand: you regularly challenge your liberatarian views by reading scholarly journals that attack these views, correct? You constantly challenge the economic theories that you believe?

EDIT: Stop editing your posts, fable!! You changed your stuff while I was writing my reply.

Cannot...must...update...

All done playing around with the post?

Yes, well, as usual I think I have gotten lost in your post. This is (IMHO) a question of free will, and who has it. In response to my query as to whether you believe in free will, you say:

I believe that the ability to think can be severely damaged at an early age if children are taught blind acceptance of a host of ideas; and that if you parrot something within a culture often enough, it will come to be believed when it has absolutely no foundation in reality. Levi-Strauss (and many other anthropologists and historians) has published some fascinating studies on this, though I suspect the cultural paradigm which will most strike home for people is Orwell's 1984. I've seen, heard, and read far too many examples of very sane people who accept what they are told, because it is comfortable, longstanding within their lives, and plays upon their finest emotions, to feel otherwise.

That doesn’t answer the question – though you win the “answer worthy of a politician” award of the week for it. I do not disagree that people can be affected, swayed, or manipulated. My question is: do you believe that people can actually make up their minds for themselves? Can they? Have you? That is the real burning question I have: are you personally just a product of the high school in which you were taught? Because (as I think I make abundantly clear in my previous post) you really, really seem to be presenting a double standard here: people who respect and love America are just manipulated boors, but you who have no such regard for the US are free of this indoctrination. But if you believe that you can free yourself of it, then you must agree that others can as well. And if others can get away from these early influences (whatever they may be) don’t you think it just possible that they might then come to different conclusions about the world than you have? Maybe some would even have some notion of pride in the United States, and maybe – just maybe – this isn’t craziness, nor the stamp of some vast propaganda machine. Maybe – you gotta admit there is some chance here – maybe this is a genuine and rational appreciation of the virtues of the US.

I respect people, Lazarus. I do not automatically respect ideas, and I will trash ideas that I think deserve it. If I had known you were so intimately affected by your liberatarian beliefs I would not have spoken so candidly about the books you recommended in the past; but that wouldn't have changed my opinion of them. And my feeling that way, in no way lowers the esteem I feel for you. Ideas are not what we are. They are ballast we take on board our personal ships, and need to be constantly assessed by our interior bursars for soundness. If they are truly inspected and found to be unworthy, they need to be cast overboard. Such, at least, is my opinion.

This is where you lose me. Sorry. I think you are replying here to my request that you give people of differing ideas the same respect you give yourself. But your reply misses my intent. The “respect” I ask of you is not blind respect for whatever arguments I may have (as you seem to indicate by saying “I do not immediately respect ideas”). The respect I ask is that you either accept that you and I have free will and the ability to transcend whatever propaganda you believe borders us – or you accept that you, too, must be a victim of it, and that all you believe is simply a product of the Nixon administration (or whoever was in office when you were a lad). I simply want a level playing field – I don’t want you to throw the game. [As an aside, I am not a libertarian, nor do I know what my choices of books has to do with the discussion at hand.]

And I must say that implying (correct me if you mean no such implication) that my ideas are somehow state-sanctioned and approved is a bit silly. Never in all my years of school did any teacher or authority figure ever discuss the ideals that I hold so dear today. I had to struggle, and look, and learn to make them my own. As we all do. That’s all I’m sayin.’ Nor, for that matter, do I ever recall any real indoctrination into the realm of patriotism. And from what I know of the education system these days, it is far more likely that kids are being indoctrinated into environmentalism and moral and cultural relativity than anything else. I trust that they will see through such foolishness, just as I would trust that they would see through any cheap attempt to turn them into thoughtless followers of the uber-state via patriotism.

Yes, well, as usual I think I have gotten lost in your post. This is (IMHO) a question of free will, and who has it.

No; it is a matter of your making certain statements ("I have an absolutely clear understanding of the positive and negative aspects of the US"), and then being asked questions which you haven't answered. I'll repeat: you regularly challenge your liberatarian views by reading scholarly journals that attack these views, correct? You constantly challenge the economic theories that you believe? Right? -Because if you don't, then I don't accept your statements about your "knowing far better than me what is in my head, and how it got there." Well--you may know better than *me,* but I don't think you'll know better than a hundred-billion-dollar-a-year industry of public relations and marketing which is designed to know how you and I think, and how to change those views. And I'm not going to debate this opinion with somebody whose assumptions about the world are locked on automatic, if that's the case--which is why I asked these questions, above.

As far as free will is concerned, I confess to not understanding where you're coming from, and not having much interest in where that point is going. People, all of us, are subject to influence all the time, to a greater or lesser extent; and most of the buying habits of the first world are controlled by what has been called for the last half century "the persuasion industry." Have you read up on it at any depth, in any of the meticulously researched books in the field? If so, what works have you studied? Have you even read the absolute classic, the first in the field, nearly fifty years old, Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders?

Arguing that "people can decide for themselves" completely overlooks the fact that people who are started early enough on accepting what they see and hear, don't; and that they can be massaged into accepting and promulgating whatever anybody is willing to sell them. Or as a college professor of mine put it back in Marketing 101, many years ago: "Given enough money and exposure, anybody can be made to believe anything. That is our goal" I have never forgotten that. And the industry has tons of evidence backing this view, which bolsters their efforts to sell their product. It explains why advertisers put billions of dollars each year into selling swimsuited girls behind the wheels of cars--and why they feel it works extremely well, even at more than 1 million dollars per minute for a commercial during the Super Bowl. If they didn't know it worked, they wouldn't invest in it. And if the ads made you think someone was trying to win you over, then it wouldn't be very effective advertising.

If you're going to claim Packard's full of it without reading it (not that you have, but... ), then we have nothing to discuss, because people who are blind always seem to argue that they see furthest. If you'll read him and a few other classics in the field, then we'll have a ton of material and background in common to argue over quantifying the results achieved by marketing, which I feel is all-pervasive, and which leads back inevitably to the theme of this thread.

don’t you think it just possible that they might then come to different conclusions about the world than you have?

Gee, look in that mirror yourself once in a blue moon, and who knows what you might get?

Originally posted by fable
Arguing that "people can decide for themselves" completely overlooks the fact that people who are started early enough on accepting what they see and hear, don't; and that they can be massaged into accepting and promulgating whatever anybody is willing to sell them. Or as a college professor of mine put it back in Marketing 101, many years ago: "Given enough money and exposure, anybody can be made to believe anything. That's our goal."

I'm not involved in the discussion between you and Lazarus, nor do I wish to be...however, the point you make above is very true, and has been demonstrated to be true in times past.

Governments practice this in one degree or another...as in Nazi Germany of the 1930's and 1940's. A relatively obscure man named Adolf Hitler and a small group of fanatic nationalists seized power utilizing the principles of this horrific truth, and it resulted in the establishment of the Third Reich.

Originally posted by Chanak
Governments practice this in one degree or another...as in Nazi Germany of the 1930's and 1940's. A relatively obscure man named Adolf Hitler and a small group of fanatic nationalists seized power utilizing the principles of this horrific truth, and it resulted in the establishment of the Third Reich.

I did a term paper on the Nazis' use of radio as a tool of control, during a period when I was considering a masters in marketing. Goebbels had a system in place that allowed him to determine exactly what was allowed on radio, in print, and in films. I spent more than 100 hours listening to archival broadcasts. He deluded tens of millions of people at the same time for several years, even though they had access to outside sources of information--simply beause his presenters and their material seemed more "authentic," more "transparent." There was no sense of massaging the truth ,much less lying; in fact, there were even a few instances of carefully arranged stumbling over scripts, in which German announcers were made to sound honestly horrified over false Allied atrocities. It was brilliant, what he achieved, and it became both a sort of test case and an ideal aimed at by the industry after the war. Fascinating stuff! I can try and get you the reference for the originals, if 1) you're interested, and 2) you can translate German.

That's the textbook example. I'll give you a more recent one: Richard Pearle was sitting 14 days ago at a press conference claiming Iraq has large stores of Weapons Of Mass Destruction. The man is sitting there lying through his teeth, and people are accepting it. Repeat the lie enough times... Fable, you made the point about textbooks. A couple of years ago a woman I know who teaches Junior High in Georgia told me a large portion of stuff regarding the genocide of the American Indians had been removed from the textbooks "as it was not important knowledge for the youth of today." This was mostly about the deliberate use of smallpox and the Wounded Knee etc. I seem to remember it getting quite a bit of attention in Newsweek and Time, but it got blown away by 9.11. Can anyone of you confirm or deny this?

Originally posted by fable
I did a term paper on the Nazis' use of radio as a tool of control, during a period when I was considering a masters in marketing. Goebbels had a system in place that allowed him to determine exactly what was allowed on radio, in print, and in films. I spent more than 100 hours listening to archival broadcasts. He deluded tens of millions of people at the same time for several years, even though they had access to outside sources of information--simply beause his presenters and their material seemed more "authentic," more "transparent." There was no sense of massaging the truth ,much less lying; in fact, there were even a few instances of carefully arranged stumbling over scripts, in which German announcers were made to sound honestly horrified over false Allied atrocities. It was brilliant, what he achieved, and it became both a sort of test case and an ideal aimed at by the industry after the war. Fascinating stuff! I can try and get you the reference for the originals, if 1) you're interested, and 2) you can translate German.

Fascinating indeed. Sadly, my mastery of German has eroded over time (as I never use it), so I am reduced to catching a word here or there in conversational speech, or relying heavily upon my Langenscheidt English/German reference book when I am confronted with the language in print.

Most people are not aware of the impact the practices and doctrines of the Third Reich has had on the modern world. The "Big Lie" works. In particular, the military tactics and doctrine of the German war machine come to my mind, because these have heavily influenced how the United States military is organized, conducts procedure, and operates in the field today. Many lessons were learned by the American military from World War 2...for the Nazis dominated the battlefield in nearly every front for many years. US (and British) armored warfare doctrine was born on the battlefields of Europe and Northern Africa in the 1940's against a Nazi foe that was more efficient in his operations, and was supplied with superior hardware and equipment. During my training period when I first enlisted in the US Army Signal Corps, I learned that US Army communications doctrine was modeled after the highly efficient system Nazi military forces used. From technique, to hardware...and yes, even propaganda.