Yes, in the Netherlands we have a culture of moaning about everthing. Youd beter not dare suggest sonething is good enough! This complaining is the only thing we are proud of. lol
(If we had patriotic songs worth remembering im sure i would have)
The problem is this, hoe do you fix something you are proud of? It seems a contradiction?
Agreed, I lives in the Netherlands for a couple years and can agree there isn't much patriotism so much as pragmatism! (I actually mean that as a good thing, I was a very fond of NL and the friends I made there).
Speaking as an American, though, I can both be proud of something and recognize its faults. I'm proud of the core principles that America was based upon, for example, but very much recognize how far we've deviated from them and how much we need to fix.
> I'm proud of the core principles that America was based upon
I think there's never much to gain in being proud of things you have nothing to do with or control over. If you like some principles you would be proud when you uphold them personally. It is when we start feeling proud in the abstract that we start having issues.
Can't help but agree. I would go even further and say that pride itself is problematic. Sure, it can perhaps have some good effects, but pride usually blinds people to faults, even if the do acknowledge there are faults.
"Pride goeth before a fall" is a time-worn saying for good reason.
I'm not a big fan of patriotism in general, but something I noticed about the US patriotism is the tendency to call the US "the best country in the world". This crosses all political differences, e.g. I recall being surprised how Michael Moore was saying it in an interview or movie (when justifying criticising policy, he said he does it because he knows that America is the best country in the world). Even the most patriotic friends I have in other countries would typically not say this.
Yeah, as an American I've always found this cringe-worthy, even kinda icky.
Claiming to be the best (at anything) is just tacky and arrogant. Especially with something as impossible to quantify as "best country". There's no such thing as the best country in the world. Every one has strengths and weaknesses, and you can't really balance and rank them.
What does leftist mean in this context? Sure you could say the "nationalist" movements against monarchies and for more democratic processes were progressive at the time, i.e. they wanted to change the status quo. Calling them leftist in the modern sense (again with a huge caveat about what leftist even mean), doesn't make much sense IMO. Also it's important not to forget that the internationalist movements (which I'd argue fit modern definitions of "left" much more closely) developed quite quickly (in historical timeframes) after, e.g. it was only 50 odd years between the Warburg festival in Germany (generally considered the birth of German nationalism) and the Paris commune.
I guess "the best" is doing a lot of work there, for example the most sung anthem for Denmark "Der er et yndigt land" - there is a lovely land does not explicitly say that Denmark is the best ever, there may indeed be other lovely lands, and in comparison with say America the Beautiful it is downright humble, but on the other hand it is my experience that anthems talk up their country, and if they are talking up their struggle for independence or freedom, like say Il Canto degli Italiani, it will be talking up the martial valor of the people so freed and probably talking about how they aren't going to be put down again, another aspect that America the Beautiful goes into.
The difference between America the Beautiful and other anthems is how much it does, for how long, and making sure it gets everything it can possibly cram in there. It's like a bunch of people standing on a stand at a sporting match shouting "America, America, America" unremittingly, whereas most people might be satisfied to shout "Go {my country}" and be done with it.
