Quote:
Originally Posted by GoNative
Actually in my opinion patriotism is directly related to feelings of superiroty and racism. Patriotism is basically pride. It is pretty much impossible to have pride without comparison.
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I would like to address this comment up to here. I don't always agree with what GoNative has to say, but at least you don't shoot from the hip and put some thought into your posts (as all the other posters in this thread do, I believe).
However this comment reminded me of being in Japan during the World Cup, geez, maybe 5 years ago.
I have told this story before, but me and a former student of mine were in Osaka during the World Cup and were looking for a place to drink a couple beers and watch Germany VS USA. It took us about 30 minutes of walking around Umeda, but we finally found a tiny bar showing the match. It had an L-shaped bar that seated maybe eight people, and two, two-person seats along the long-side of the L's wall. We sat down at one of the tables and ordered a couple Buds. A few moments later we looked at the short-side of the L, and saw two young gentlemen wearing Team Germany jerseys and drinking German beer.
It was a good game, and we were both cheering for our respective country's teams. There were no one else in the tiny bar besides the bartender, and over the couple hours we were there several beers were downed. In the end Germany won (I think it was 2-0, but don't remember now) and at the end we finally acknowledged our "rival" fans with a free beer and a kampai in congratulations.
The Germans left the bar before we did, and the bartender admitted he was frightened that he was going to be in the scene of a fight, with Americans and Germans as the only customers in his bar during this match. He was relieved to see us clink glasses at the end and talk spiritedly but cordially about the couple hours we had just spent.
This is an example where pride for country does not have to do with comparison, superiority, or racism.
I wanted USA to win more than anything in the world for those short moments, but I knew in my mind that Germany had a stronger team that year. That just made me wish America could have won more. However, when it was all over the better team win, and our team knew it. Then I was proud our team lost but didn't lose their honor as gentlemen players. Again no sense of national superiority.