Why I Have No National Pride

For better and worse (these days more often than not worse) I'm an American. That's my (only) citizenship. The US passport is the only one I've ever carried. 

Combine that with being a tall, white (relatively heteronormative) male and I certainly have a ton of privileges wherever I decide to live and work.  

That said, I've never felt 100% comfortable identifying solely or primarily as an American and I can't say I have any national pride to speak of. 

When I've talked or written about these sentiments in the past, I've sometimes gotten negative reactions from other Americans who think I harbor hatred or bitterness towards my country of birth.

It's true that there were times in my life, (especially high school) where I did have very poisonous feelings for the US. I've moved on though. Hatred (no matter how warranted it may or may not be) is always a waste of time. 

These days my feelings to the US alternate between ambivalence and a sense of somber duty. I try not to be the ugliest version of my country to the outside world. By sticking to what I think is ethical and by owning and challenging the ugliest parts of America, I hope I present a better face to the world than the one we have now.

Yet I don't take pride in being that American or any other kind of American. I don't feel compelled to have pride towards my nationality. This isn't because America is somehow worse than other places in the world. It's just that on a personal and more rational level I just don't think anyone should have to be proud of the country they were born or raised in.  

I grew up outside the US and I've spent a lot of my adult life living in other countries. Growing up a Third Culture Kid (someone raised outside of the home country/culture of their parents) means that I don't have the same personal attachment to the States as people raised there do. 

Not all American TCKs are like me. Some are quite comfortable living Stateside and are truly at home in America. For me though, growing up in Thailand and living abroad in other places has shown me that it's possible to be at home anywhere in the world. My formative memories from childhood and youth largely come from my time in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai and it's that place I identify most often as my hometown, when I'm asked. 

Growing up outside the US, also showed me from an early age that human beings don't need to have the same nationality, cultural background, race etc. to coexist, get along or even create real and even profoundly deep bonds. 

Nationality for me, is something incidental. I happen to be American but my being American is not something I'm especially attached too nor do I choose to let it define me even though it definitely informs my worldview.

Defining your self-worth by your nationality and more importantly assigning lesser value to other people based on theirs, is flooding our world with toxic nationalism and xenophobia. 

This toxicity was on display most recently in El Paso and I saw it earlier in the year at the terrible mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand.  I've seen it on display recently in Korea as a Korean-Japanese trade war continues to escalate. I can see it playing a part in the rhetoric of the Beijing government as it tries to repress the discontent in Hong Kong.

All too often, when national pride is invoked it's in the name of attacking an enemy. Group think sets in and blinds those who think of themselves as patriots. Problems between nations become all but impossible to solve and individual citizens are incapable of seeing any solutions. Your country and your people become the right country and the right people. Those who are not part of your country or your people are in the wrong. The facts no longer matter. You are right by default and they are wrong by default. The hypocrisies, shortcomings and faults of your own nation disappear as soon as you become wedded the idea that the other side is irredeemable because of what they are and you are the righteous because of what you are. 

To me, the saddest part of the value that so many people ascribe to their national identities, is how flimsy and arbitrary the foundations for that value is. None of us chose the countries we were born into. None of us chose which country or culture we were raised in. Yet somehow so many cling to this identity they were born to and allow it to determine their worth and the worth of others in their eyes. They do this, I think, for a pretty simple reason. It's what they know and they assume, without really consciously being aware of it, that how they were raised to see the world is the way the world truly is.

It may ultimately be, impossible, for any of us to truly escape ourselves and see other perspectives 100% clearly. However, by not wedding ourselves to the countries and nations we happen to be a part of I think we can at least begin to see each other more clearly. 

If Trump is Strong, I Want to Be Weak

 

I'm not a fan of Trump. Anyone who reads what I write and sees my FB posts can see that. 

 

Whenever I share something about him a little debate goes on in my mind about whether to post that meme or article. 

 

'Do you really want to give the man the attention he so desperately craves?' The cautious part of my mind asks. 

 

'A huge segment of the electorate and the media gives him that attention anyway.' I reason. 'And they often don't recognize him for the fascist blowhard he is.'

I had this same debate with myself while trying to decide on whether to dedicate a blog-post to his candidacy. I decided it was worth it.

 

If nothing else, I can make sure there's a public record of where I stood on his candidacy during this election. 

 

I want to write this, not in the hopes of swaying his supporters. I'm almost certain they will defend the man regardless of anything he says or does. I write this in the hope that people who may regard him as just a joke will see just how dangerous he could be for America and for the world.

If I boil my feelings on the man's campaign down to one word, that word is 'repulsive'. 

 

His personality, his platform (if his ramblings can even be called that), his manipulation of people's fears and prejudices, his willingness to dish out insults but throw a hissy-fit if anyone attacks him, his gleeful pride of his own ignorance, his blatant, never-ending ego-masturbation. 

 

There is nothing, nothing redeemable about what this man says or stands for. His ravings represent a version of America that mindlessly indulges the darkest parts of our history and society. 

 

Like many populist demagogues throughout history, he gives his followers a temporary but ecstatic high of security and confidence by making them part of his own grand myth. He makes his people the heroes of an epic story in which they are 'winners' and every problem in their life is the fault of some other (Immigrants, Muslims, Liberals, the Media). 

 

Hitler did it, Mussolini did it and now Trump follows in their goosestepping wake. He is creating his own simplistic black and white universe for anxious Americans, angry (often justifiably) at all things established to lose themselves in. It's a universe removed from the complex nature of reality. But it's a simple one to accept and understand, which is why it has such appeal in a time of anxious uncertainty.

And it is that willingness to swallow Trump's koolaid that is most frightening. What Trump says is repulsive but I think there is still an argument to be made that he is simply a reality tv-showman playing to his audience's fears. There's still some doubt in my mind over whether he is truly committed to all the BS he spouts. 

 

What is far more troubling to me are the people who get so lost in his fantasy that they begin to see everyone who differs or disagrees with them as an enemy. The example of two Boston men beating up and urinating on a homeless Hispanic man in Trump's name could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Once this kind of alternate, Nativist fantasy is mainstream (as I fear it is becoming) it can be hard to get rid of. Even if the story itself is inconsistent people cling to it because they need that story to make them feel empowered. 

 

For the kind of mythology Trump peddles is not for strong, secure people. His story of  'Make America Great Again' is for those who are profoundly insecure and doubt themselves in a time of change. 

 

And that includes Trump. He needs to believe his own BS perhaps even more than his followers do.

He bristles as every hard question thrown his way by reporters. He feuds with those few voices in the mainstream media that call him out on making up stories about Muslims cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center. He throws personal insults like a toddler when his own tweets get read back to him for a debate.

 

Is this the mark of a secure strong leader? 

 

A man who styles himself as a strong leader who will make America great, cannot handle a tough line of questioning and talks lustfully about punching protesters in the face when they try and disrupt his rallies.

 

If this is what strength is in Donald Trump's America, if it is measured not by how well you can engage your opponent in mutual discussion but by how loudly you can shout, pout and throw a tantrum when the entire world does not declare you to be the best man in the universe, than I am perfectly fine being weak. 

 

If winning in Donny's United States is demonizing others to make yourself feel better, I'm happy to be called a loser. 

 

If being great, means having an ego so frail that it can be shattered with a single question, than I earnestly embrace being small. 

 

Donald Trump is a clown, but he is a dangerous clown. And if the people of America lose themselves in his world we deserve everything that comes next.