A strong feeling of identity with and loyalty to one's tribe or group. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. There's no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed. . . . National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country.
Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. In its purest sense, nicknaming is an elitist ritual practiced by those who cherish hierarchy. For preppies it's a smoke signal that allows Bunny to tell Pooky that they belong to the same tribe, while among the good ole boys it serves the cause of masculine dominance by identifying Bear and Wrecker as Alpha males. Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents.