An immigrant periodically confronts the term Patriotism.
When someone recently asked me such a question, I decided to learn more about it.
Patriotism is perceived as a measure for the love of the land.
Please allow me to start with a context of my belief:
I believe that anything, which can not be measured, can not be managed.
Anything which can not be managed, should not be used to evaluate anything.
When we do utilize them as evaluators, it only creates unresolvable conflicts.
This applies to perceived measures like - Religious and Patriotism.
Thus, if the intent is to seek a solution, one may not use these perceived, unmeasurable performance indicators, to evaluate a problem or quality of a solution.
Based on this understanding, my current conclusion is, that "Patriotism is a doctrine to control masses and nothing beyond that". I can sure go into a longer version of why, by sharing my experiences of last two decades starting with my first migration from Anand to Mumbai (within India), but not today. (Phew! :))
Historically there is one common behavior which all of 7 billion homo sapiens have demonstrated, to varying degrees, is "Migration". Humans seek for lands which tend to their needs better. That land can be within recent definition of a country or not.
A final and a very prominent clue is - why are people within a nation, who call emigrants unpatriotic, (only because they do not live there) but continuously do things which damages their own motherland ? My take, because they really do not believe in patriotism nor understand it but just use it because Patriotism can not be measured. Patriotism in this specific case is confused with the term residents.
Having said all that - you may notice that most immigrants, especially who came to US in last decade or two, are always involved in varying degree of volunteering within US and they contribute to their "motherland" significantly (whatever the reasons or motivations may be) without getting into any claims or debate about it. This is the reason why India, for example measures its economic growth by FII - Foreign Institutional Investments - keyword is Foreign.
Point is if one has to be appraised for their love for the land (mother or father! :)) they should be appraised by their commitment to "Giving back", irrespective of where they are giving it back. Simply because "Giving Back" is measurable and actionable, Patriotism is not.
Side Note:
I wonder: why do Politicians love their jobs and never want to resign ?
Because this is one job where the employer (citizens) has no clue what or how to question the employee and in most cases either loves their employee blindly OR gives up on him/her because they belong to a Union! :)
When someone recently asked me such a question, I decided to learn more about it.
Patriotism is perceived as a measure for the love of the land.
Please allow me to start with a context of my belief:
I believe that anything, which can not be measured, can not be managed.
Anything which can not be managed, should not be used to evaluate anything.
When we do utilize them as evaluators, it only creates unresolvable conflicts.
This applies to perceived measures like - Religious and Patriotism.
Thus, if the intent is to seek a solution, one may not use these perceived, unmeasurable performance indicators, to evaluate a problem or quality of a solution.
Based on this understanding, my current conclusion is, that "Patriotism is a doctrine to control masses and nothing beyond that". I can sure go into a longer version of why, by sharing my experiences of last two decades starting with my first migration from Anand to Mumbai (within India), but not today. (Phew! :))
Historically there is one common behavior which all of 7 billion homo sapiens have demonstrated, to varying degrees, is "Migration". Humans seek for lands which tend to their needs better. That land can be within recent definition of a country or not.
Please refer to this wiki for the history of the word: Patriotism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
There is a tonne of material out there to understand the origins and utility of the term Patriotism.
It is important to note that Patriotism is a fairly new term coined only in
late 18th century. Coincidentally this is the same time frame when the world started seeking "Democracy" as a model
of Governance more extensively. Starting with US in 1776. I have no specific data but I would want to believe that there has been a significant part of the earth, which became democratic, since 18th century.
It may be a coincidence, but my cynical
mind derives that this has to do with a NEED of something other then religion (which reached limited masses, comparatively) which would help
control a larger set of masses, beyond the boundary of a religion.
A final and a very prominent clue is - why are people within a nation, who call emigrants unpatriotic, (only because they do not live there) but continuously do things which damages their own motherland ? My take, because they really do not believe in patriotism nor understand it but just use it because Patriotism can not be measured. Patriotism in this specific case is confused with the term residents.
Having said all that - you may notice that most immigrants, especially who came to US in last decade or two, are always involved in varying degree of volunteering within US and they contribute to their "motherland" significantly (whatever the reasons or motivations may be) without getting into any claims or debate about it. This is the reason why India, for example measures its economic growth by FII - Foreign Institutional Investments - keyword is Foreign.
Point is if one has to be appraised for their love for the land (mother or father! :)) they should be appraised by their commitment to "Giving back", irrespective of where they are giving it back. Simply because "Giving Back" is measurable and actionable, Patriotism is not.
Side Note:
I wonder: why do Politicians love their jobs and never want to resign ?
Because this is one job where the employer (citizens) has no clue what or how to question the employee and in most cases either loves their employee blindly OR gives up on him/her because they belong to a Union! :)
