That's an incredible leap. "I am ashamed of my country, time to shove people into ovens."??? Like what?
The more sensible thing to consider is that we don't teach kids to have pride or shame based on their country.
Trump wants 'Patriotic Education'.
- Thread starter ObsidianJones
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The more sensible thing to consider is that we don't teach kids to have pride or shame based on their country.
It seems to me that people think you are teaching kids to "be ashamed" of their country if it is even implied that America wasn't divined out of thin air by God to be the greatest nation ever. Like, how do you feel about the efforts by Japanese nationalists to downplay the atoricites carried out by the Empire of Japan during WWII?
Downplaying attrocities? Why, I've never heard that before...
Actually, to clarify, I know this isn't directed at me, but I'm not too perturbed by the nationalist stuff, because that's true of every country. You'd want to smother over the bad bits, and bring forth the good bits. It's a pretty common human reaction.
But if we're talking about Japan specifically, I'm not too worried. From what I understand, there's a lot of resentment towards Japan from countries like China and the Koreas, but most of the Asia-Pacific right now is focued on China and the resulting tensions. Supposedly it's resulted in Japan being somewhat isolated diplomatically in the region, but meh, what do I know?
We should teach our children that nations are nothing more than a convenient fiction
Okay, I know it's human nature, but when you are trying to downplay stuff like The Rape of Nanjing and Unit 731 into amusing little peccadillos (or just flat out deny they existed, and if they did happen someone else basically forced them to do it, etc.) then that is a problem.
The world got anime
So what if it's a common human reaction? Do any negative side effects of nationalism vanish once you say that?
I also fail to see the link between Japan downplaying atrocities and their diplomatic situation. Like as in, why you think that's reassuring. Unless you thought people were worried that Japan would have a sterling diplomatic situation with these countries, I do not know why that would be reassuring.
It's not-not a problem, but I don't see it as a big problem.
When I look at the Asia Pacific, I'm not overly concerned with what Japan did a century ago, I'm more concerned with what's happening right now. North Korea's at least being horrible to only its own people, but then we consider Myanmar, the situation on the border with India and China, China's actions in Tibet and with the Ughyrs, and everything else. Being concerned about both of these things isn't mutually exclusive, but one prompts far more concern than the other.
This isn't even just about Japan. For instance, I'm not overly worried about Turkey downplaying the Armenian genocide, I'm concerned about the tensions between Greece and Turkey, and Turkey's actions in Syria.
No, but see above as to why I'm more concerned about actions in the present than actions in the past.
To clarify, the idea that Japan refusing to apologize for past attrocities has hindered diplomatic relations isn't an idea that reassures me, but it's not an idea that overly bothers me either.
Again, I'm not overly concerned with what happened a century ago, I'm more concerned with what's happening RIGHT NOW. If we were living in the 1930s, then I might have been worried about Japan. But since we're living in the 2020s, even confining this just to Asia, Japan apologizing for war crimes is low on my list of priorities.
Abe was the most nationalistic leader since WW2. He deliberately isolated itself because ’Japan is better.’ Which made it difficult when the JS, with the help of Austelia, made a String of Pearls to counter China’s power.
But, to be fair, India has been way more of a problem and makes China’s treatment of the Ulgiers look nice. Modi make Trumo look reasonable. They're current nationalism is way worse than anything Abe did.
Okay, but this is a thread more pertaining to the past. Is there a reason you decided to come in and say you care more about other stuff? Do you in some way think that caring about the past and how we choose to educate people on history is going to detract from the present situation?
Also nationalism isn't just a matter of past vs present, instilling nationalism has an effect on the politics of the present, or at least near future.
Slavery was illegal in 19th century France. Hell, slavery was illegal in France between the revolution and Napoleon, then went back to being illegal 25-50 years later, depending how you count. Pre-Nazi Berlin was full of LGBT people, meanwhile the USA was criminalizing being gay during my lifetime.
And the USA backed Pol Pot as soon as the Vietnamese went in to fight the Khmer Rouge.
This shit is why we need to teach people that the USA was never great: because otherwise people believe the weirdest shit about what we did.
Forgot to say this earlier.
LEARN. ABOUT. HAITI.
Just to add on: France went pro-LBG around Napeleons reign too. Soviet Russia created child care centres so women could work and gave them lots of rights. Not quite up to the level of men, but still better.
The best thing that could ever happen to black, LBGT and women in America was Prohibition. Whites men were forced to mix with the rest just to get a drink. Everyone was a criminal and there could be no social hierarchy BS? This supercharged civil rights movements a generation later
It also forced Americans to be more responsible with drinking. They drank dramatically less after Prohibtion. Which dramatically helped with domestic violence.
Suffice to say, the US accidentally creating a more rights based thinking doesn't say much about them
No.
C'mon, the classic example of a ruler sticking people into ovens is, of course, Hitler, who is also a classic example of a ruler using extreme nationalism. The period after Hitler's rule is marked by (most) Germans being ashamed of what the country did when he was in charge, and a notable lack of people on ovens.
Teaching people that their country did bad things in the past they shouldn't do again turns out to be sorta useful for countries not doing bad things in the future, oddly enough.
France abolished slavery for the first time in the 18th century. Although Napoleon reinstituted slavery, it was slowly phased out again throughout the 19th century, culminating in full emancipation in the 1840s.
France actually saw some of the first organised feminist movements. Olympe de Gouges published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791, calling for full legal equality between men and women. There were women's patriotic societies which provided women with a way to organise and participate in political life. After 1793, there was a stronger focus on family in French politics, and thus women were mostly barred from organising, but the idea of women's rights as a political platform pretty much originated in France.
France also decriminalized sodomy in the 18th century (although this had more to do with secularization than gay rights).
France is not the country you want to take on in this regard. The French revolution shook the foundations of the Western world. The American revolution shook the price of sugar. The primary accomplishment of the latter was creating the economic conditions for the former by soaking up ridiculous amounts of French money.
(Yes, I'm being hyperbolic in order to illustrate a point about perspective.)
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Funny, you could do a litany about some of the most f'd up colonies in global history and what they have in common, like Haiti and Vietnam? French.
As others have pointed out, while the US has changed itself for the better a couple of times, it usually was trailing behind other nations and also often pretty late overall.
But Americans often don't know that because you have hardly anything but American history at school. Your achievements get glorified and those of other nations not even mentioned. And then you start believing this whole great nation nonsense.
A nation in which students can be suspended for flying flags denoting respect for cops and firemen has an education system with a problem. Trump should do something about it. https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...suspended-blue-lives-matter-flags/5800972002/
Well, that is so US specific that it is difficult to translate to other countries.
But when a studend from some school team is told not by his teacher to not do something at a school event, does it anyway and gets suspended, it sounds about right. And if afterwards people decide that that teacher was wrong to forbid it and the suspension gets lifted, it seems how it should proceed as well.
What exactly is the problem ?