Is being proud of your country unfashionable in Europe?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is being proud of your country unfashionable in Europe?

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

I'm proud national pride is disapproved of in my country.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 15:47

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:21

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Nobody. Everyone who might have agreed with it was terribly pessimistic and depressed, as is evident from them going to Spain or France to kill themselves.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 15:52

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Even when the US had full blown slavery they were still a democracy. Slavery has been a thing for all of human history. Europe and america still have sex slave trade. They still get the democracy label from me. Perhaps some day in the future well have direct democracy and all humans will be free, no prejudice and elections will be the thing of theoretical beauty.

But in the meantime we have the messy aparthaid, slavery, prejudice, hispanic non citizens in america not voting kind of democracy.

To some, democracy means any system where government depends on voting. To others, it's a system where the people rule - equally, that is. An apartheid nation could be a democracy under the first, but not the second understanding.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 16:13

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

The ones that did better are the ones who listened. Poland privatized and their corruption is real low. They do have too heavy of a beurocratic system they didnt shake that from their russian days.

The countries that didnt do well tend to have high corruption, heavy red tape beurocracy, didnt fully privatize, stayed more within the russian sphere of influence and the russian mentality of doing business.

The people Ive met in poland, my family, their friends. Are very happy with the condition of the polish economy, how its grown since adopting american ways. And we have a democracy that works very well for us.

Then you look at russia and all its satellite countries that it corrupted and they struggle. But they never went full american. They wanted to be mini russias but in charge of their own failure. As russians are owning their failing economy now through heir glorious leader kim jun putin

And the lowest corruption - lower than in the US, and much lower than in Poland - can be found in the nordic countries, which are usually seen as socialistic to some degree.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 16:15

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

I think the US has definitely been essential for extreme positive developments. However, not necessarily so much where it, as a state, was intentionally trying to fix the world; for example, while this is hard to say in hindsight, I'd be surprised if south america would have been worse off without all the CIA toppling of democratically elected governments.
But US citizens, building on US spirit, economy and liberty, have made tremendous contributions to science and technology, saving undoubtedly billions of lives. Think just of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution.

davidb posted:

Are you trying to say russia has less corruption than america?

Re-reading my post, I can confidently answer: no. I was not trying to say anything about Russia. Otherwise, I might have said something about Russia. Why are you talking about Russia?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 19:05

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Disinterested posted:

Nobody is perfect can be a valid way of looking at history. Further back in our history people were so pig-ignorant that it's hard to say of them that they should have made choices that we regard as morally appropriate in the modern world, particularly with regards to thinks of which those people were simply unaware. The problem is trying to translate that logic in to the present to totally relativise everything - or even to totally relativise the past. By the mid-late nineteenth century all of the arguments for slavery had been debunked thoroughly. It was obviously a morally bankrupt idea, not even consistent with itself.

Nationalism had a very appropriate role to play in the time it was a developing phenomenon, as a way of stopping ancien-regime horse-trading of social and political communities. It is a totally legitimate social feeling to say 'look, we're Saxons. I don't want to be told I am a lower Saxon or an upper Saxon, or that I live in a different country to half of my family because of some curiousity of dynastic law. We should be allowed to have our fates conjoined'. On occasion feelings like this developed quite a long time ago in parts of Europe that were a jigsaw of states. It's very easy to see how you can get to an irredentist position from here, but a large number of early German romantics did think of nationalism more in these terms than in the crowing militaristic terms with which we are more familiar.

I guess every way of compartmentalising humans - by sex, skin color, wealth, sexual orientation, education, ... - has been used both in the context of liberating, as well as oppressive structures.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 19:40

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Mornacale posted:

Not everyone has been committing genocide and slavery continually for the last several centuries.

Who, except for those terribly weakened by suffering genocide and enslavement, hasn't?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 22:27

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ytlaya posted:

I can think of countless things that are accomplished by being critical of nation-states, but not a single one that is accomplished by jacking off about how one is "number 1."

You're DEFINITELY not thinking hard enough.

Just one example: there's an a in the middle, a w at the start, and it ends on an r.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 14:33

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

People were much happier in Poland during the days of the USSR, which is evident in how few of them were fleeing

Is this a joke? I can't tell anymore.

Effectronica posted:

Stalin's explicit reasoning for abandoning the right wing of the Bolsheviks and embracing forced collectivization was in order to arm the country against a possible invasion. Not specifically against the Nazis, but it wasn't hard to see by 1928 that between the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, the USSR had a lot of enemies, all of whom were better-armed and more industrialized than they.

So it's not so much "could they have industrialized" as "could they have achieved the crash, militarizable industrialization necessary without the use of force", which is a much thornier and probably unanswerable question.

Surely you wouldn't say the purges were a good idea, or even a necessary evil

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 16:42

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Actually, do you mean, the US has done more proportionally speaking*, or in absolute numbers?

*compared to its considerable and incomparable might

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 19:58

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

I dont see any other country ushering in relative world peace. So however you want to go about it. The country you wish to name has to have a greater effect than what i just named

Please answer the specific question I asked.
If the answer is "relative", I say Iceland or Sweden. If it's "absolute", I say true - but they also committed a large share of the evil things.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 20:38

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Cuba has, in absolute numbers, contributed the most health personnel to the fight against Ebola in West Africa. Given the virulence of Ebola, I'm going to count this as Cuba saving hundreds of millions if not billions of lives.

The Swedes love to sell arms and support ethnic cleansing though.

I have much respect for Cuba, but neither is it a country with a clean slate, nor can it, in absolute numbers, stand up to the pure humanitarian impact of the US (when ignoring negative contributions).

I assume it's a strong contender in the "relative" or "net" categories though.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 20:45

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

A Buttery Pastry posted:

When did the US ever prevent a pandemic that would have killed billions of people?

I don't think you can that easily say "would have killed billions". Also, having played a significant and disproportionally large role in containing an epidemic does automatically mean all the saved go on your account.

You must also consider that the climate of the US is one of preferring private wealth and private humanism over state humanism. Are we comparing the total effects of nations, or the effects of dedicated government interventions?
Surely, the economic, educational and scientific achievements of Americans can at least partially be attributed to the US system. Do private interventions by US citizens, and more generally, people who made their wealth or discoveries built on the US system, count?

Basically, the question of "what country is #1 (regarding improving the world)" is too underspecified to deserve an answer.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 20:53

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Im mostly interested in absolute. Since world peace requires an absolute power capable of keeping the other hounds at bay.

But im curious who the relative contendors are.

Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, generally the Nordic countries? If we restrict ourselves to post-45, Germany.

davidb posted:

Cuba demanded russia bring about nuclear holocaust.

Cuba? Castro. And that was in response to (perceived) US provocation. And you think Kennedy didn't have half a dozen people by his side screaming to push that button now?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:30

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Cuba? Castro. Whats the difference.

Well, one is a socialist dictator, the other is a nation of millions of people.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:54

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

From where im sitting cuba sent a small percentage of total aid to a part of the world that doesnt matter

#blacklivesmatter

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 22:33

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

If you plotted each war with a little firecracker explosion on a world globe and then accelerated it along a timeline you would see a sharp drop off post ww2.

That's not really true. What you have is that in comparison to people living in peace, the proportion of people living under war decreases incrementally. In absolute terms, violent death isn't strongly receding.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 22:38

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Poor countries, full of corruption, bent on committing genocide every other year, who have rejected many efforts to bring them into the 21st century

Dont matter.

Could be yellow, red, brown, white. There are latin american and asian countries that dont matter too.

When they get their poo poo together and step on the world stage then they matter.

#thisistherealworld

In the real world, you're astonishingly racist. Though now I understand how quick you are to declare US #1!!!!.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 22:40

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

Intersectionality exists anyway, it's not like blacks can't be racist towards foreigners.

Famously, blacks can be genocidally racist against other blacks from their own country even. It's almost as if they're just as lovely as every other kind of human.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 22:51

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Whoa.

I'm not racist, but

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Cuba saved me from eating my neighbor's poop itt

Cuba came too late to save me.

davidb posted:

But not getting any decent numbers for lets say 1960 to present

Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature is full of that kind of stuff.

davidb posted:

But we have gotten better at killing

We've arguably not improved much. The bullet-to-kill ratio in Vietnam was worse by an order of magnitude than in WWII. The last major wars - Iran/Iraq, Rwanda genocide - were fought with weapons mostly not much beyond WWII levels, including human wave tactics, gas, and other stuff reminiscent of WWI, or machetes in the case of Rwanda.
Although Rwanda may not matter because it's poor

davidb posted:

You may be correct. The number of wars has gone down. And percentage wise people die less to wars.

International conflicts are decreasing compared to increasing civil wars, low-intensity conflicts and asymmetric warfare.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 23:03

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Interesting. I didnt know any of that. I kinda figured we were getting better at killing.

Depends on the measure, and if you care about efficiency or effectivity.

davidb posted:

So where we at on the death count 1960 to present?

Considering the world population has more than doubled since then, I doubt the absolute number has gone down. But the relative number has done down significantly.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 23:25

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ardennes posted:

If anything in the last 60 years the working class and unions have been pretty much demolished and the middle class has been shrinking for decades. It is more difficult to crow about a system that starts to retreat on its gains when it doesn't face entrenched competition.

% of people in extreme poverty has gone down, life expectancy up, % dictatorships down, median income up.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 16:16

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

the Greek and Latin scientific texts

Oh my, what would modern society be without the staunch defender of liberty and democracy that is Plato.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 17:35

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ardennes posted:

Third world gains in East Asia while other regions have been languishing, and if anything the lack of balance of regional development has lead to greater instability. Also, it is looking like growth is slowing dramatically in China and that economic conditions there are possibly worst than their government admits.

However, the "creation in the first place" is in a big part due to unions and government protection of them which leads back to the birth pangs of the Cold War.

A good % of those dictatorships were ones we supported, especially in Latin America, and largely existed because of the Cold War. Furthermore, there is growing indications that the decline of poverty of the third world was dependent on a middle class in the first world which is continuing to disintegrate. If anything the argument is it is unsustainable, just very likely as "American era peace" looks is it might be. If anything the 1980s to 2008 might be considered a great bubble of growth depended on the middle class, but it didn't necessarily result in a third world middle class to replace it and if jobs return to the first world, they will be the ones with the most minimal pay and thus far reduced ability to spend on consumer products. Basically, the system is being squeezed dry.

A lot of this is irrelevant, wrong, or not in direct contradiction to the original statement - that, as you agree, the world has improved, tremendously, continuously.

Sure, the question of sustainability is a heavy one. But our doubts about the future do not make the prosperity of the present disappear.
After a terrible depression in the 90s, Africa has improved as the rest of the world has - at faster rates than the west, too.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 18:07

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

asdf32 posted:

I think some people hold incompatible ideals of Facebook era individual liberation and collective leftist reform.

Isn't it rather that almost the opposite is true - that general welfare (albeit not collectivist reform) and individual liberty only come together? I feel my freedom depends heavily on my neighbours' welfare.

This of course depends on what you mean by collectivist reform. But I don't see many people supporting that the ownership over the means of production be turned over to the workers itt.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 18:19

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ardennes posted:

You probably should specific what is "irrelevant or wrong" then, and as for the world improving, it depends on who you ask. If you ask for someone form most of the former Soviet Union, it has gotten far worse, as from someone in the satellite states, it most likely has gotten better. In China it has gotten better, in much of Africa it doesn't seem to have changed much.

No. That's absolutely the wrong way of going about it.

We need to look at statistics, not stories.
% in poverty, # of dictatorships, median life expectancy etc.

Ardennes posted:

Incomes have risen as a whole, fine but it hasn't "risen all boats" quite the same way or at the same time.

Which is why I said median life expectancy/incomes.

Ardennes posted:

The "prosperity" of the present also can very well disappear especially for much of the have-nots of the world, as wealth if anything concentrates in ever fewer hands and the climate destabilizes, many will be left on the losing end. Africa still remains impoverished and destabilized, and higher growth that the West (which isn't too hard to achieve at the moment) isn't much of a place for solace considering they may have missed a period of growth that may not return and are already facing dramatic crises.

This is all true, and of course being realistic (optimistic) about the recent trend of the present always beating the past when it comes to humanist concerns must never keep us from being realistic (pessimistic) about the future.
If we can, with all efforts, only maintain the current rate of progress in the face of climate change, growing inequality and the old enemies of racism etc., that would be something to be very thankful for.

Ardennes posted:

To be honest, your arguments remind me a lot of what you see in George Friedman's "books" or in the Economist.

Completely unfamiliar with either, but the relevant statistics are readily available.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 18:24

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

asdf32 posted:

Collective in a general sense. A healthy society requires enforced self sacrifice for the collective good. It also requires sometimes aggressive defence of ideals. This is true for all functioning societies but certainly still true even if we move further left. The diving line between the realities of achieving this and some of the negative aspects of imperialism is not anywhere near as bright as some people think (consider the south trying to secede to maintain slavey, or federal actions during civil rights)

This is incompatible with simplistic notions of individual liberation.

Oh, okay.

Ardennes posted:

Really? Lucky you I guess, maybe give it 6 months?

What?

Generally, I agree with you technology was a major factor in the world-wide increase of welfare. But first, the extreme technological progress has factually happened under this system. Second, I think it's not the only one; if (and I think this quite likely) the capitalists have discovered it is more profitable to allow the 3rd world some basic development than to brutally oppress them with whip and bullet, and that a peaceful Europe is more profitable than a nationalist Europe, and that has caused a significant increase in well-being, then that is better than Stalinism, aristocracies, and every other way the world has so far been organised in. Is a better world possible? Surely. But you cannot argue for this better world by obfuscation and false claims. You can say, we wish for a better order because we are concerned the current one, as far as it has brought us, likely will not bring us further (and I am quite with you on that one). But you can't say it has not in the past greatly improved global well-being, more than any other system so far.

I generally think there's a strange whiny delusion on the left that the world is OBVIOUSLY going to poo poo right now, this very second, and has been going to poo poo for the last X years. This is just what the conservatives say, and it's simply empirically false. The idea that western capitalist dominance has ruined SE Asia is about as false as the claim that islamism or immigration or ISIS are a realistic threat to the values of Europe.

In the sense that people's lives are currently improving, the world is getting better, especially in the ways we are most concerned with (% in poverty, global peace etc). It may be false that it is getting better in the sense of being reliably able to sustain this trend.
And yet, the trend exists. I even think it is the whiny delusional left that can be most proud of this - rather than being in denial.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 18:46

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Disinterested posted:

Plenty of rich right wingers in the 20th century have been totally set against the use of force overseas for any reason, too. Think of the legacy of America First, Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, Pat Robertson and also the British Cliveden set

Also libertarians

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 19:42

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

davidb posted:

Interesting. I checked it out for myself and it seems greek city states used the term against other greek city states.

So in mt view the term barbarian denotes a lower level of civilization between cultures. Romans might call germanics barbarians. And germanics would view mongols as barbarians.

Since macedonians were equally advanced compared to other greeks i would not call them barbarians.

For someone who's so sold on Western civilisation and the Greeks, you kind of don't know that much about them.

Disinterested posted:

Then you checked it out badly. Greeks used it against non-Greek speakers and people they perceived to be uncouth or poor speakers of Greek. Athenians were king snobs.

Well I am sure you'll have a few events of Athenians calling Spartans Barbarians or something like that. Just like leftists call each other fascists in anger.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 21:04

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

US hegemony was useful when it acted as a counterweight to Soviet influence

But is that not something we can only say in hindsight, as the lucky survivors of what may as well have been the end of the human race?

Not disagreeing with your overall argument.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 11:52

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Disinterested posted:

Yeah, I suspect a Brazillian superpower foreign policy would be very like the US's. China does exhibit irridentist tendencies, even if it's not territorially demanding. Its neo-colonialist efforts in Africa are already the stuff of legend though - unsurprisingly, new forms of imperialism are more and more purely economic.

Personal ranking of what continent I wish the next lone superpower oppressor to come from:
Australia > South or Middle America > Europe > Africa > Asia

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 17:04

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Disinterested posted:

I think if Australia became a world superpower I might commit suicide.

Why - are you a poofter?

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 17:11

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

The US is a lot like democracy or capitalism. It's pretty terrible, but it's a lot better than basically any other thing that's actually been tested yet on that scale.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 18:14

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:21

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ardennes, is there any specific line of mine you actually disagree with? Or do you just want to make a different emphasis over unambiguous facts?

One note regarding the style of the argument: you're right Stalinism improved some things. But what I said wasn't that Stalinism* made everything universally worse, but that it was in effect less good than Capitalism, both for its own countries as well as the world. Just like I didn't say Capitalism was the best thing ever, only that it's better than everything we've tested on a large scale so far.

* edit: and the follow-up regimes

Cingulate fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jan 23, 2015

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 10:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is being proud of your country unfashionable in Europe?