A good example why nationalism and pride about it makes no sense. Most people had no choice in where they are from, and had no influence on something like this. Having pride in something you did not influence and had no choice in is really weird and kind of narcissistic.
This is why it gets toxic and dangerous easily. We see similar issues with fans of sports teams, even though the fan has literally nothing to do with the team.
its just an ancient tribal instinct. oh, you're from the squirrel bones tribe? pssh, your berry bushes are shit. rat skull tribe have best berry bushes, and we have stream. squirrel bones tribe have no stream and bad berry bushes
reminds me of JP Sartre: by disparaging the jews, the anti-semite instantly puts himself into a superior group without having to actually do anything.
Nationalism works the same way. "I belong to THIS socially constructed group! We do such great things!" as if they built the community from the ground up and weren't just thrown into a world with systems already in place independent of them that helped produce the things they're proud of...
Like sure community is a thing but at a certain point doesn't it get quite arbitrary what you take credit for? and doesn't that also mean we have to take credit for all the bad things too? every Palestinian would become Hamas and every American a drone pilot. those are precisely the reasons I am not patriotic and i dont find "shut up, frog" jokes funny. "just" tribalism? "just" a wee cheeky bit o fash in the mornin?
Also in this case it's kind of a great example of how positive nationalism and pride quickly turns negative. The US has more dairy farmland than any other country, im sure there is plenty of fancy boutique butter. It's a pretty weak premise, almost certainly drawn completely from negative stereotypes.
Having pride in something you did not influence and had no choice in is really weird and kind of narcissistic.
what
When someone says "I've been sober for a year" and a commenter says "I'm proud of you, OP", is that narcissistic? Pride in this sense is a sense of community accomplishment. As a social species, we share in the achievements of others as necessarily related to our own - it's a form of creating bonds and encouraging behavior. Whether you dislike the idea of nations or not, having pride in something you didn't influence and had no choice in is perfectly normal and not at all narcissistic.
Not the same. A more apt version using your comparison would be someone saying ‘I’ve been sober for a year!’ and the other person (who still drinks, but perhaps cheered them on now and again from the sidelines) says either ‘You mean we’ve been sober for a year!’ or ‘Yes, and it’s all thanks to me!’ - never mind they didn’t actively step in to help, or try to go dry themselves.
What the complaint you quoted was objecting to are people claiming full part of something they had no control over and no (or not much) involvement in, just to make themselves feel more important.
Yes we as a social species like to share in accomplishments, and that’s fine! But there is a line, that unfortunately gets crossed quite a lot, where people start to feel that they themselves were involved in the accomplishments of others, and that’s not so good. To paraphrase an above poster, we didn’t win the Super Bowl.
And also, some things people take ‘group pride’ in aren’t accomplishments at all. Being born in a specific place, for instance, or having a specific skin color. Or even just trying to share credit with every inventor/creator/whatever of the same gender. It does all tie back to our instinctive tribalism, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.
Not the same. A more apt version using your comparison would be someone saying ‘I’ve been sober for a year!’ and the other person (who still drinks, but perhaps cheered them on now and again from the sidelines) says either ‘You mean we’ve been sober for a year!’ or ‘Yes, and it’s all thanks to me!’ - never mind they didn’t actively step in to help, or try to go dry themselves.
That's literally not the claim being made by these people in the OP taking pride in their community's accomplishments though.
When someone says “I’ve been sober for a year” and a commenter says “I’m proud of you, OP”, is that narcissistic?
No, it's an instance where what people say is not what they feel: The second doesn't comment on their own pride, but is expressing something like admiration. At the most, pride in being friends with such a fine chap who would manage to be sober for a year.
Mostly, though, it's just a fixed phrase of encouragement and praise, unrelated to the actual words used. The fixed phrase could be "cowabunga!" and it'd mean the same.