I think one problem is that everyone has a different definition of the word 'pride'. Over here in Europe a lot of people think of pride as something you feels when you actively achieve something.
Ran a marathon? You can be proud of this!
You were born white/black/asian/... in France/Turkey/Spain? There is not much to be proud of, at the end of the day it's just pure luck who your parents are and in which culture you are born.
Schopenhauer said it best:
"The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen.
The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes.
But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
It's pretty much frowned upon to be in any way proud to be a pale skinned European; mainstream media demands we feel shame for all the oppression we did in the centuries before our birth.
That said, I don't understand how I've can be "proud" of which country you were born in, makes no sense to me.
>I don't understand how I've can be "proud" of which country you were born in, makes no sense to me.
I guess it all depends where you draw the line, do you feel proud of your parents?
Some people will say "No, I only feel proud about what I accomplished myself."
And that's ok, that's his point of view, we could say this is a subjective matter, from my point of view, I feel proud of who I'm, I'm proud of my parents, and then I can extend that line and say I'm proud of my community, my city, my country, my civilization, I'm proud of being part of humanity, obviously that "proudness" will increase when that line is nearer to me, in other words the more relatable to myself the prouder I can be.
You use 'we' to describe your collective, showing you understand the concept of heritage, and then go on and say you don't understand pride in your people.
Only whites seem to have this internal conflict, and that makes far less sense than being proud of the society your people created.
>It's pretty much frowned upon to be in any way proud to be a pale skinned European; mainstream media demands we feel shame for all the oppression we did in the centuries before our birth.
It's Paddy's day on Saturday - how does that celebration square with your claim?
'European'? I don't think you can generalise on a continental scale. Irish people are generally pretty happy about their Irish-ness in my experience. Same with Basques and Greeks, and probably lots of other assorted Europeans
I was born in Canada and I'm definitely proud of it. Not necessarily that I was born here, but that Canada is the way it is and how it has shaped me. I think that is what pride in a nation really is. Americans who are proud to be Americans are this way because they perceive it to be the most free country in the world, and to be a part of that heritage lends something to pride.
Pride can be good and bad. Being proud to succeed as a single parent, or proud of being the first to graduate university in the family.
Proud to be black or proud to be white.... Getting iffy depending on context. Of course, the opposite would be troublesome, ashamed to be black, or ashamed to be white.
Pride in heritage is still important. Genes don't necessarily define a person's success (genes are regulated in expression, and so expression can be changed by environmental factors) but they do anchor an individual to history. They ground a person in eons of time. Being proud to be black or white or anything else is part of that.
I think there is a difference in denial --which I don't propose and overtly and outright saying I'm proud to be "...". Be comfortable with being "..." accept being "..." and not wishing to be anything else.
I hope people feel their heritage is "cool" but I'd rather not have people feel their heritage or a different heritage is "better".
On the other hand, I feel that there are some societies that indeed contributed more to civilization than others. I don't think that's deniable. But I mean as a person one should not feel "better" or "worse" than any other person because of heritage.
I don't think we can say which societies contribute more or less. That's based on the metric of what they are contributing, but overall that discussion is too complex to definitively say who contributes more.
As for feeling "better" I agree with you, only that pride is not necessarily a feeling of superiority. In most cases it is an acknowledgement of something related to the individual that he or she feels is inherently good. Not everyone associates good with better.
I haven't taken a DNA test but I would be very excited to learn I am 99% European. My family doesn't have a lot of historic records as to our origins. We know we technically started in Russia (on my mother's side), and my father is pure Italian, but other than that we don't know jack shit. If my genetic line came from just one region, I would have hope for piecing together my family's ancestry. As it stands, I feel disconnected from my roots.
A lot of people who are "pure X" turn out to be anything but, sometimes in as quickly as three generations. Go for the test and enjoy whatever you get from it.
Just take pride in who and what you are and where you came from.