From: ST@linguist.umass.edu
Subject:      About Patriotism
Reply-To: ST@linguist.umass.edu
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 04:43:56 GMT
Comments: To: China-NT@uga.cc.uga.edu

    There has been a heated debate on Patriotism.  There are differences on
some theoretical issues, its philosophical, historical and moral aspects, its
definition or the terminology, etc., etc, and sometimes the difference is only
on which aspect one wants to emphasize.
    However, it seems that there are also some points less controversial
and shared by many (if not all) from both sides.  For example, a country (Guo2)
is not equal to its government or its ruler(s), therefore, to love a country
does not necessarily mean to love its government, and should not necessarily
lead to the support of its government's policy.
    I have my opinion on evaluation of the concept of "ai4-guo2" (Patriotism)
and its theoretical aspects, but I do not want to discuss it here.  What I
will emphasize here is a less controversial aspect, which I hope to be a common
ground for the practical use of the concept of patriotism.

    1.  One may love one group of people more than he/she loves other groups.
It seems that nobody is against this, leaving aside whether it is noble or
just natural.  At least it is okay when no hatred to other people is involved.
    So, people may do positive things with patriotism when there is no dispute
and no harm to other people.  For example, a Chinese might be more willing
to make donations to people suffering from natural disasters in China than
to people suffering from similar natural disasters in other countries.

    2.  When there is an international dispute, patriotism should not be used
as a criterion to judge which side is correct.
    For example, when there is a war between two countries, A and B,
citizens of A should not automatically support A, and citizens of B should
not automatically support B either.  People should check what causes the war
to decide which side (or neither side) should be supported.
    Similarly, when there is a trade dispute between two countries, people
should not automatically support their home country's trading policy because
of their citizenship.  Other criteria should be used.
    In the dispute about Hong Kong democracy between PRC government and
British-H.K. government, Chinese people should not automatically support
PRC government's policy, and British people should not automatically support
Pattern's plan.

    In sum, Patriotism should not be used as a criterion or a reason in an
international dispute.  People should be very cautious not to be blinded
by patriotism/nationalism.
    Those whose opinion happens to be the same as PRC government's should
not use patriotism to justify their own stand against the other side,
explicitly or implicitly.
    Of course, those whose opinion happens to be different from PRC
government's should not use another thing -- supporting the totalitarian
government -- as a reason to critisize the other side either.

    Nothing particularly new in my posting.  Other people have already
pointed out or discussed the points I wrote about above.  I just want to
emphasize these points and hope that there is a more or less consensus
on them so that current or future disputes on other topics will
not be affected by patriotism.
    (When people do not have a clear mutual-agreed concept for patriotism,
it will make things more mixed-up rather than serving as a common ground for
debating.  Patriotism or Nationalism?  True patriotism or the extreme of
patriotism? etc. etc.  So, it is better NOT to use the concept of patriotism
at all when debating on other topics.)

    Thank you for reading my posting.

    SHEN Tong
 an ordinary student of linguistics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst