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national identity
- Thread starter jenn
- Start date
Nice one.
Rustam
New Member
novella said:
America helped Stalin during WWII? It is big mistake. Stalin asked when USA will join opposition... that's all. But they joined only in the end of war when cup of scales inclined to USSR side, if this cup bended to Germany site they would join them. I don't remember USA's military suport, or rations. It is very big mistake, that USA helped Stalin, they didn't.
I never understood why people have loyalty for a pile of dirt and rock. Is Canadian dirt better than American dirt? Is American dirt any better than British dirt? Is British dirt any better than African dirt? Is their air better? The grass better? The buildings better? It's all the same. We life, we hope, we love, we die. We all human under one star on one planet. Maybe in some far future people will drop nationalism. I don't like any nationalism even the "harmless" kind such as I'm proud to be blah blah.
It's like when the white men first came to the American continent and told the Indians they found there that they were going to take bits of land. They laughed. They couldn't understand the concept. How can you own the land or the sky?
People want to feel safe and a part of something. People want to "Belong" From nation, the county, to town, to music genre, to football team, to family.... everybody has got to belong to something. To define themselves by something. Afraid to be the odd one out. Think for themselves. It's always the same. Maybe one day we can move beyond that. Beyond borders and race and social circles.
And isn't the question becoming less important? I certainly hope so
Now with the age of the Internet national borders are meaning less. I talk to people and have friends from all over the world. They are just a keyboard stroke away and I can even talk to them via a Mic and headset. Cultures are merging together. We live in a global society. People of all races and creeds live and work in many countries and mix and add their culture.
As you probably guess I do not define myself by my country. It means nothing to me. It's a lump of dirt. I was born here. My people are no more special than any other people. My government is no betterthan any other government. Everybody has the same wants and desires.
How do I define myself? I don't. I'm not English or British. I am me. Unique
It's like when the white men first came to the American continent and told the Indians they found there that they were going to take bits of land. They laughed. They couldn't understand the concept. How can you own the land or the sky?
People want to feel safe and a part of something. People want to "Belong" From nation, the county, to town, to music genre, to football team, to family.... everybody has got to belong to something. To define themselves by something. Afraid to be the odd one out. Think for themselves. It's always the same. Maybe one day we can move beyond that. Beyond borders and race and social circles.
And isn't the question becoming less important? I certainly hope so
Now with the age of the Internet national borders are meaning less. I talk to people and have friends from all over the world. They are just a keyboard stroke away and I can even talk to them via a Mic and headset. Cultures are merging together. We live in a global society. People of all races and creeds live and work in many countries and mix and add their culture.As you probably guess
I do not define myself by my country. It means nothing to me. It's a lump of dirt. I was born here. My people are no more special than any other people. My government is no betterthan any other government. Everybody has the same wants and desires.How do I define myself? I don't. I'm not English or British. I am me. Unique
novella
Active Member
Rustam said:
There was a continuous, significantly valuable flow of military and nonmilitary material support to Russia for three years during WWII under the US's Lend-Lease program. These, of course, were not meant to be repaid. The total is near $11 billion, in WWII US dollars.
Here is a list of specific materials and their value:
http://www.geocities.com/mark_willey/lend.html
This is documented in gov't records and is--today-- a matter of public knowledge. Stalin continually asked for more and more support, thinking this insufficient.
wabbit i see what you are saying, and understand it. but don't you also think that all those factors contribute to who you are now. say you had been born here in canada, or wherever. your life experiances would be different than the ones you have now, making you a different person. i'm not looking to start a pissing contest. or chest beating or flag waving. i would never say canada is better than any other country, who am i too make that statement. i am more looking at national identity and how one feels about it. regardless that you feel no ties to your country, you are british, not chinese or hungarian. does it affect your moral fiber, of course not. but wouldn't your views on the world would be vastly different than someone from a 3rd world country? wouldn't you identify with a way of life because it is what you know, not that you feel that way is better?
i promise my intention was not to look at other countries/nationalities and point fingers and stand on my soap box, but to look at ourselves and say this is what goes on where i live. it's just interesting.
and isn't saying you are unique still a definition of yourself?
i promise my intention was not to look at other countries/nationalities and point fingers and stand on my soap box, but to look at ourselves and say this is what goes on where i live. it's just interesting.
and isn't saying you are unique still a definition of yourself?
Oh, I know you didn't mean it as a chest beating exercise! I didn't take it that way!
And no, I don't agree with you If I was born i Canada, then sure I would be a different person to the person that I am now. But just the same, if I was born in Liverpool instead of London the same would be true. It has nothing to do with country. My point is that we all have the same needs and wants. We all need to eat. We all want to be loved. We all worry about the bills getting paid, we struggle to be happy. We cry in the bad times and laugh with the good times. Country has nothing to do with it at all. Sure there are some cultural differences, but in the end of it we are all human.
Why should you be proud to be a Canadian or why should I be proud to be British? The concept that I should be proud because random chance had me born in a certain country is a strange concept to me. I should be proud because I share the same bit of dirt with other people that just happened to be born here? An odd concept
And no, I don't agree with you
If I was born i Canada, then sure I would be a different person to the person that I am now. But just the same, if I was born in Liverpool instead of London the same would be true. It has nothing to do with country. My point is that we all have the same needs and wants. We all need to eat. We all want to be loved. We all worry about the bills getting paid, we struggle to be happy. We cry in the bad times and laugh with the good times. Country has nothing to do with it at all. Sure there are some cultural differences, but in the end of it we are all human.Why should you be proud to be a Canadian or why should I be proud to be British? The concept that I should be proud because random chance had me born in a certain country is a strange concept to me. I should be proud because I share the same bit of dirt with other people that just happened to be born here? An odd concept
Rustam
New Member
novella said:
Sorry, non of our historical documents didn't mention this list.
But i think if hostilities would be on US territory. We would gave the same help. It is not like suppoting dictators in your main example.
Helping Stalin wasn't the same. This was a matter of life and death of all world.
P.S.
Did you know that Bush had link to Ben laden? Both of them had interests in oil.
Okay, okay as you wish, where this tin? Show me
Actually, Wabbit, I don't think that's possible. You may not be too proud of your country or you may not care about it one way or another, but fact of the matter remains that you are English. England's the place you grew up in and no matter how hard you say it didn't, it did shape you as a person. It influenced you: the language you speak, the clothes you wear, the view you have on the world. Your background is English. Sure, there are plenty of other factors that influenced you as well, but "being English" plays a part also in who you are.SillyWabbit said:
I myself am Belgian and not just because I was born in Belgium. I'm Belgian because I grew up eating Belgian food, because I know where I was when two girls were freed from a cellar in Marcinelle, because I've lived with the bilingual nature of this state, because I've made jokes about its royal family, because I've felt ashamed about the Belgian foreign policy and because of thousands of other reasons. I'm Belgian because I see things from a Belgian point of view.
That doesn't mean all Belgians are the same, just like not all Englishmen are the same. I share more things with the people I grew up with than I do with people from another province and sometimes Wallonie feels like an entire different country. But at the end of the day, I have, with regards to what I grew up on, have infinitely more in common with another Belgians, than I do with the Dutch, the French, the British, the Germans or the Luxemburgians (or is it -burgers?), while they live only a stone's throw from where I live.
Lies said:
I don't agree with that
I see what you are saying and to a certain extent it is true. I think the point we differ on is how large a factor is the place you are born in. I think it's very little. Sure, it shapes you. I agree with you that far
But I don't think it has a big affect. As I said, the human condition is universal. I don't think growing up in Belgium is much different from growing up in Britain. Sure, there maybe some cultural difference but then there are so many other influences such as money, education, genetics. I really don't see it as a big factor.
novella
Active Member
Rustam said:
Oh yeah. Their families have been working together for generations. It's interesting that both Osama and George W. have been the black-sheep bad boys of their families in the past.
Did you know that George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush was one of Hitler's major financial backers?
He was a principal in the Union Banking Corp, which financed Hitler's purchase of US steel for war machines from 1926 to 1942. "Bunny" Harriman was Prescott's partner, the major shareholder, and he left the running of the bank to Prescott.
Bush's Union Banking Corp was seized by Roosevelt in 1942 under the Trading With the Enemy Law, but Bush had already reaped huge personal profits. All the bank's stocks were owned by Bush, Bunny Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates.
Their partnership with German Steel Trust, a Nazi-run war machine owned by Fritz Thyssen (a notorious Nazi industrialist), was the beginning of the building of the Bush-Walker fortune. Before they diversified into oil with the Bin Ladens, they were arms-merchant bankers.
Thyssen's board was stacked with Nazis, and these were Bush's close business associates. Thyssen is credited and admitted in his own book that he personally financed Hitler's rise to power.
You don't hear much about old Prescott these days. Bush's other grandpa, George Herbert Walker, was also a big Nazi supporter who made a lot of money dealing with Thyssen and other Nazis. This was, of course, during the Great Depression, when most people in the US could not make a living wage.
Nice.
NB: The Harriman family are still very powerful Republican players. These relationships never die.
it keeps coming back to pride. not my point.
wabbit, i get the impression( i may be wrong) from this thread and the employement thread, that you try to avoid being compartmentalized or put into neat little boxes. example: wabbit he is a man, he's british, he reads, this is his job, this is fav food etc and then the view of who you are will be made up of these few things.
but i feel that these things are just tiny little keyholes into a person and by finding out where you live, or what school you went to or music you like is not about filing people away in the appropriate folders, but opening up doors into their personalities.
i remember taking in sociology in high school a bit about role sets, i think it was called, and we had to list who we are ie:
jenn mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, canadian, waitress, homemaker, artist, etc. none of these things define me absolutely, but when you put them all together, you get an individual.
not my point.wabbit, i get the impression( i may be wrong) from this thread and the employement thread, that you try to avoid being compartmentalized or put into neat little boxes. example: wabbit he is a man, he's british, he reads, this is his job, this is fav food etc and then the view of who you are will be made up of these few things.
but i feel that these things are just tiny little keyholes into a person and by finding out where you live, or what school you went to or music you like is not about filing people away in the appropriate folders, but opening up doors into their personalities.
i remember taking in sociology in high school a bit about role sets, i think it was called, and we had to list who we are ie:
jenn mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, canadian, waitress, homemaker, artist, etc. none of these things define me absolutely, but when you put them all together, you get an individual.
You say there are other influences like money, education and genetics, and that's true. However, it's also true that those factors are sometimes also closely linked with nationality. I'm pretty sure the education you got is very different from the one I got. But you're right... If you look at the bigger picture, Britain and Belgium aren't so very different. None of the Western countries really are. But what about Britain and Japan? Belgium and Thailand? France and Peru? Those are pretty big differences if you ask me.SillyWabbit said:I don't agree with that
I see what you are saying and to a certain extent it is true. I think the point we differ on is how large a factor is the place you are born in. I think it's very little. Sure, it shapes you. I agree with you that far