Am I "proud to be
British"?
What is it about my
intrinsic "Britishness" that I am meant to "be proud"
about?
Can someone explain?
Am I proud to "be
British", as if by mere dint of the accident of my birthplace I should be?
Why? What did I do to achieve it?!
Scraping the barrel to
feel ‘pride’ in the accident of one’s birthright or other random association is
ridiculous, demonstrative of arbitrary tribalism at its basest.
Nationalism is the domain
of imbecilic racists and jingoists.
Can one ever feel pride
over something one had literally no hand in?!
Would anyone posing the
question care to explain how the analogy might break down if I were to say,
appallingly 'I am proud to be white'?!
Am I "proud to be
British"?
Being proud of oneself for
the entirely passive fortuity of being born in Britain is of course a different
issue from being proud of Britain1.
While it is a great
country, frankly that has little to do with any one person...and I certainly
have contributed little to it so far, so why should I be proud of it?
In fact as far as my
country goes, essentially all I have ever done is selfishly take an inordinate
amount of money from it to fund my education, all the while benefitting
lavishly from its rule of law, liberal values and free healthcare.
Though despising the nationalistic
pride of chance regional identity, I love my country and perhaps I hope to
actually contribute something to it one day that I may actually be able to say
I am "proud" of the country I helped build.
As far as I can see, the
people with the greatest claim to such a pride for the entire country as a
meaningful entity are our law-makers and our soldiers.
Am I "proud to be
British"? No...I am grateful
1At the risk of oversimplifying perhaps nationalism and
patriotism could be delineated as I am proud
to be British vs. I love Britain.
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