We Won!

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
Albert Einstein

I read someone’s blog post earlier today (a Filipina) in which she wrote proudly that a singer of Filipino heritage was a finalist in some American Idol clone show in Austria. I found it amusing and at the same time pathetic. It is so typical of us domesticated primates (to borrow Robert Anton Wilson’s pithy characterization) to take pride in the most absurd things and among the most preposterous are those related to group pride - specifically national or civic pride.

At its most benign level we have things such as this Filipina’s blog entry: irrational pleasure or a sense of self-worth based on the accomplishment on someone whose only connection to oneself is that they (or their ancestors) happened to be born in a geographically not-remote area. At the other extreme we get tens of thousands of starved, butchered, mutilated, incinerated, raped and tortured Iraqi adults and children because mercenary Iowa farm boys just know, without thinking, that America is the best, and therefore ‘right”.

On a local and seemingly harmless level we get sports franchises. I think of a short scene in an old Seinfeld show that sums up sports franchises nicely: Kramer or some other character exclaims with delight “We won!”, to which Seinfeld responds, “We? What we? The players won. You sat and watched!” Even this area though is not always quite so harmless. Witness the chaos and anarchy that follows on the streets of cities after the local team wins a championship.

A similar manifestation of homo sapien capacity for stupidity is pride in one’s heritage. That one would seem to be getting even worse as, among the fastest growing sites on the Web are those related to the research and creation of family trees. I recall having a friend in Korea who once proudly told me of how he could trace his family line back about 600 or 700 years and that back there near the beginning one ancestor had been a monarch. When I indicated to him that means he probably shares about the same amount of genetic material with that ancestor as I do the point was lost on him.

For my part, I hold to a simple view with which apparently nobody agrees. That is;

(1) I take no pride in anything other than what I do personally or what is done by those over whom I might have exerted some positive influence, and,

(2) I accept no guilt and feel no shame for acts other than my own or those commited by people over whom I might have exerted some negative influence.

A Canadian hockey team wins a championship? So what? What’s that have to do with me? Celine Dion is a superstar? What’s that have to do with me? The Canadian military illegally bombed Yugoslavia and illegally invaded Afganistan? Don’t blame me! Not my fault!

National pride!
Tribalism.
Yuck.
Is there a more stupid, irrational and potentially dangerous emotion - save, perhaps, its corollary - racism?