> The question "Who invented this?" is most often pointless
Perhaps you're right in a technical/technological sense. But there's a deeper question I think we need to explore: will we as American citizens be patriots? (where by patriots I mean simply people who love their country and fellow countrymen/women and have a shared cultural identity).
Brazil ought to be lauded for their fierce patriotism. Their insistence that Dumont is the real inventor is great - it means they care about their shared history and cultural identity. It's part of how Brazilians as a people-group care about and love one another. US citizens ought to feel the same way about the Wright brothers. As a citizen myself, I'm proud to say that the Wright brothers were the first to fly an airplane that carried a human. It matters to me because this is my country. If you're a US citizen, it should matter to you too.
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Zooming out a bit... A house divided against itself cannot stand. Love is what holds families together. To love family members is to care for and prefer them more than people outside the family -- that is a good thing. A strong family with strong love can be a strong resource to help people outside the family.
In the same way, a country divided against itself cannot stand; and love is what holds countries together. To love fellow countrymen/women is to care and prefer them more than people outside the country -- that is a good thing. A strong country with strong love can be a strong resource to help people outside the country.
We need that in the US (and many places in the West) again. TA isn't so much about who is "right" but the difference between Brazilian national identity and the USA (which used to have a strong national identity).
This kind of patriotism makes little sense to me. It's like football hooligans fighting over their favorite sports teams.
My citizenship is not something I chose, it's an accident of birth. I'll support my country when they do things I think are good. I'll support other countries when they do things I think are good. Supporting your own country even when they are doing things that are bad seems bad to me.
> My citizenship is not something I chose, it's an accident of birth [...] Supporting your own country even when they are doing things that are bad seems bad to me.
Would you say the same of your family?
If a family member were doing bad things, I would still love them and be loyal to them. But I would show that love by confronting them thoughtfully, not rejecting the family entirely. In that sense, our mutual family membership could hopefully become a means of calling them back to their senses, especially if multiple family members are involved in talking to them over a period of time.
> It's like football hooligans fighting over their favorite sports teams.
That take trivializes human institutions in which we are members. These institutions ought to be taken as sacred. When they fall, we fall. (Not so with a sports team losing to another team :)
A nation falling is a big deal. I'm surprised at how you hand-wave it away.
Yes, some falls were good. The falls of the Nazi Germany, the USSR, East Germany, and Nicolae Ceaușescu were very good, primarily because those regimes oppressed their populations and murdered tens of millions of people. Yet many falls were bad. The fall of Germany to the Nazi party, the falls of Russia and China to communism, and any invasion and subjugation of a free and noble people is a bad thing.
Let me ask you this rhetorically -- would you rather the USA be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, or the US government? Imagine the consequences of each -- I think you'd agree that each is objectively better or worse than others for specific reasons. If such a choice were presented, it would not be morally or practically neutral - it would carry tremendous implications for human flourishing (or suffering).
We ought to consider carefully and not hand-wave historical (or potential future) events that carry such massive consequences.
> if your country goes bad, your best move might be to take your family and get the hell out of there
Agreed, but that's a last resort. Many did so as Germany was falling to the Nazis, and as Russia and China were falling to communism. I have a friend whose parents escaped to Taiwan by holding on to the underside of a boat as it crossed the channel... I wouldn't tell them it wasn't a big deal. Many people who did so lost everything except their immediate family in the process.
So many people couldn't flee, though. And so much that had been built (people, skills, knowledge, families, institutions, relationships, social capital) was lost forever.
Can you explain from first principles why you think it’s important? National identity is a relatively recent concept so it’s clearly not essential or fundamental to human culture. It’s not clear to me why I should care more about people in New York (2000 miles away but part of the same geopolitical entity) more than people in Brazil.
> Can you explain from first principles why you think it’s important?
I take it as given that (a) individual human flourishing is an important and worthy goal, (b) love (seeking the good of others) and hard work are the principal means of attaining that goal, and (c) formal human institutions (like marriage, family, and country) are the best means of organizing the human relationships and activities that fall under [b].
Given (a), (b), and (c), it follows that:
- to promote the health and flourishing of those institutions is to promote human flourishing itself
- thoughtfully managing shared values and expectations of members in those institutions promotes flourishing of the institutions
- love and preference for other members of each institution promotes the health of its members and of the institution itself
I also posit (but don't have the space/time to work out the reasoning) that just as individual people should not live for themselves only, each institution must not exist merely for its own sake, but also for the good of those outside of it; that its own internal health and cohesion is an important prerequisite for being able to effectively benefit the rest of society; and that institutions that exist solely for their own sake with zero outreach are unhealthy.
However, to say that an institution is wrong or unhealthy because members of it love each other more than people outside the institution is to deny that the institution itself is a good thing. We intuitively know that healthy married people love each other more than others, and that healthy family members love each other more than others. In a healthy company, we work for the good of our own company first, not other companies. The same principle should apply to countries. To reduce the principle to a pithy saying: "Put your own [country's] oxygen mask on first."
> National identity is a relatively recent concept
I don't understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Every successful society since ancient history, from local tribes to the great ancient empires to modern countries had (at a minimum) social cohesion, shared values, and a shared identity. Individual members of Visigoth and Viking tribes identified as Visigoths and Vikings and had a shared sense of identity; same with Greeks, Romans, Germans, French, English, Swedish, etc. The United States at its inception and for a long time afterwards was no exception.
This doesn't mean we should be unfriendly and not care about others. Love is not a zero-sum game. Members of families that are affectionate to one another also feel very loving to people outside the family. The healthiest countries in the last 100 years were also some of the best international partners and best places to travel...
Perhaps you're right in a technical/technological sense. But there's a deeper question I think we need to explore: will we as American citizens be patriots? (where by patriots I mean simply people who love their country and fellow countrymen/women and have a shared cultural identity).
Brazil ought to be lauded for their fierce patriotism. Their insistence that Dumont is the real inventor is great - it means they care about their shared history and cultural identity. It's part of how Brazilians as a people-group care about and love one another. US citizens ought to feel the same way about the Wright brothers. As a citizen myself, I'm proud to say that the Wright brothers were the first to fly an airplane that carried a human. It matters to me because this is my country. If you're a US citizen, it should matter to you too.
--
Zooming out a bit... A house divided against itself cannot stand. Love is what holds families together. To love family members is to care for and prefer them more than people outside the family -- that is a good thing. A strong family with strong love can be a strong resource to help people outside the family.
In the same way, a country divided against itself cannot stand; and love is what holds countries together. To love fellow countrymen/women is to care and prefer them more than people outside the country -- that is a good thing. A strong country with strong love can be a strong resource to help people outside the country.
We need that in the US (and many places in the West) again. TA isn't so much about who is "right" but the difference between Brazilian national identity and the USA (which used to have a strong national identity).