[LINK] The Hallowness of Chauvinisms
Jan. 15th, 2006 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom a comment of Ken MacLeod's, posted in a discussion thread on A Fistful of Euros that was veering someone out of control in an excessively-patriotic American direction.
Is this ridiculous? Of course. It also follows that similar nationalist statements similarly drawing pride in similarly irrelevant and/or overstated conclusions are similarly silly. If I hear someone talk about a special Canadian role in the world, perhaps in conjunction with our northern environment and its role in encouraging us to think in certain ways, well.
Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us.
Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down.
And we have nuclear - fucking - weapons.
Is this ridiculous? Of course. It also follows that similar nationalist statements similarly drawing pride in similarly irrelevant and/or overstated conclusions are similarly silly. If I hear someone talk about a special Canadian role in the world, perhaps in conjunction with our northern environment and its role in encouraging us to think in certain ways, well.
