one of the most interesting moments in my schooling was watching a teacher sweatily try to explain the difference between patriotism (good) and nationalism (bad).
@interneteh anyway this is a pretty good toon
nationalism is when someone I hate is patriotic
@interneteh i think when your patriotism is philosophically and politically isolationist and exceptionalist, that is when i would call it nationalist
@meena @interneteh What about the Scottish nationalists whose explicit goal is to be have Scotland be a sovereign country within the EU and in many instances became nationalists in reaction to British isolationism?

@AnarchyonGallifrey @meena they're good actually.

The only kind of nationalism I can support is when oppressed people do it against colonizers.

@interneteh @meena Like, I don't completely disagree. And I totally agree with the goal of Scottish independence, but I still think nationalism of the oppressed is shortsighted in that as soon as the oppressed become the non-oppressed, they can be pretty quick to become the oppressors. Zionism is an example of this. Like, solidarity with independence movements fighting against oppression all the way, but I think it would be wise to base the struggle on something other than national (or cultural or religious or ethnic) identity. If Scotland becomes independent tomorrow, in ten year's time there will be Scottish nationalists talking about securing the border because of all the brown people coming over from England.

I also understand that the points I'm making here may seem inconsistent.

@AnarchyonGallifrey @interneteh Scotland has an interesting history, especially with its role in British colonialism, so it would be interesting to see if Scotland deals with it better than England, or, the Crown did.
@interneteh this just rekindled my desire for something turning the typical tropes of LOTResque high fantasy on its head again
@a_breakin_glass a song of ice and fire tries to do this, but falls a little flat in places.
@interneteh The International Antifascist Defense Fund sells this as one of their sticker designs
@interneteh both of them get people to sacrifice themselves in war, and therefore suck
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - An Important Distinction

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - An Important Distinction

@interneteh patriotism is large-scale corruption. Nationalism is large scale gang culture.
@interneteh oh g-d i had the best time in AP american gov't -- we had the politically ambiguous wrestling coach jadedly haranguing us to read more howard zinn & then try to spend class time talking abt phish concerts he'd been to
@interneteh high school philosophy teacher tried to pull one of those and said "surely everyone here is at least a little bit patriotic" and me and another commie dude raised our hands like actually not a single bit fuck this country and he spent like a solid 20 minutes trying to convince us that we actually were patriotic (and failed)

@interneteh i remember in high school it was presented to me as one being a vice while the other was a virtue, like in the same way as courage vs recklessness

ofc it goes w/o saying that that’s dumb and they’re the same thing though lol