US: why so narcissistic patriotic?

[Preety_India]

6 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

When are you moving to the US?  We don't want to keep you as a hostage in Europe

I must say you have kept too many people hostage in Europe. Not a great idea. Send them on the other side of the Atlantic. 

[fridjonk]

2 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

And no, the countries in EU can't be seen as the states in U.S., not at all.

These are all just concepts in your mind. It's not written in the stars somewhere. 

If shit goes south, the European Union would act as one country.  

I say the EU because of the alliance they have as a political power. You can't really compare a continent to a country. 

[fridjonk]

1 minute ago, Mikael89 said:

You are overestimating EU.

Yeah, maybe I am. 

[Axiomatic]

6 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Also @Mikael89 , America currently  is a shill for Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Currently unironically rooting for China to overtake America.

I have never lived in China, and I am aware of America's shortcomings. But it seems as if Chinese rule would make my quality of life worse. So I do not support that. 

[Akemrelax]

It's stage blue propaganda completely blind to reality.

Every stage blue country believes it's the best country. It's much easier to see when you belong to two different cultures.

The similarities between Indian conservatism and American conservatism are uncanny. Conservatives all around the world believe their culture and religion are in danger, they operate from fear. You know there's a problem when a developed nation uses tactic an developing nation uses. 

[Preety_India]

They blame the left for communism. 

They don't realize they are creating their own version of communism. 

Nationalism on this scale is dangerous. I've seen nationalism in my own country. It's usually a source of riots. 

The world needs peace at this point. 

Nationalism is a recipe for world wars. Think of Nazi Germany. 

Nationalism always looks cool in the beginning, it becomes ugly very quick, think of Nazi Germany during world War 2, that's how nationalism works  

Nationalism is an ominous word. 

The real patriotism should not be to religion, race, culture or country but to humanity and democracy. 

The world is in need of peace once again. Think of the treaties that were signed immediately post world War. 

A crowd marching with nationalist sentiment is a sign of worry. It's a stage Blue dogma paraded as pride. 

I agree with @Akemrelax here. It's stage Blue dogmatic attitude. It always comes from deep fear and paranoia. Such fear is not the solution to problems. He and I understand this because we can simultaneously relate to a stage Blue undeveloped or developing country and a developed progressive culture. 

The only solution is Democracy. 

First remove the interference of religion  in state. Religion should be removed from politics and enforce strict democratic laws 

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Preety_India

[Lindsay]

I highly recommend these two audiobooks or paperbacks.

“Don’t you know who I am” goes in great depth about dealing with narcissistic people, how to spot them, why they are that way, celebrity and political examples in American culture.

 

”Hold on to your kids: Why parents need to matter more than peers” talks about the importance of secure attachment styles between parents and children. A cultural shift happened after WWII. Raising children changed. The culture gradually started to shift. Parents are overworked and short tempered. Invalidation of  kid’s feelings. The dangers of focusing on behavior rather than intent. Parental discipline shouldn’t mean putting the kids in time out if they misbehave. Or withholding love if they misbehave. Or conditional love like “I love you if you get straight A’s in school and clean your room.” And it’s not about screaming and spanking your kids or telling them what is right and wrong without explanation. Enforce boundaries but let the child know they are loved in a calm loving voice. ALLOW them to have tantrums, just instead of punishing them for the anger they naturally feel (hard wired instincts), console them and be present with them until they calm down. Suppression of anger or any emotion breeds resentment and frustration. Also causes the children to detach from their parents and replace the attachment with their immature adolescent peers who will not love them unconditionally. The book also talks about what happens when peers also reject them or victimize them or bully them. How schools no longer allow children to go home for lunch. Devices and smart phone put a wedge between the parent child relationship. Children become secretive and manipulative. Stunted development creates narcissism. The book makes the argument that it’s our culture. The decay of family oriented values and religion. Stage orange in spiral dynamics. These books don’t talk about SD but it sure added a lot of meat to the SD skeleton as a model. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Lindsay

[No Self]

1 hour ago, Lindsay said:

The book makes the argument that it’s our culture.

Some interesting arguments. There are 4 parenting styles:

Permissive (kids allowed to do whatever)

Authoritarian (kids forced to obey strict rules)

Authoritative (a balance of freedom, discipline and open dialogue)

Negligent (parents completely uninvolved)

Obviously the authoritative style will yield the best outcomes, but parents need to be in a reasonable mental state themselves (including sufficient sleep, controlled stress levels, etc.), as well as sufficiently developed/educated in order for this to come naturally.

There's a huge counter-argument that needs to be made, given the issues of hypersensitivity, anxiety, narcissism, intolerance towards alternative viewpoints, etc. that have been plaguing educational institutions. There is a place for discipline, appreciation of others, empathy and respect as a 2-way street. We see the results of the absence of this with many young people today. Bill Maher has expressed this many times.

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by No Self

[Preety_India]

@No Self  I was raised in an authoritarian environment by strict parents and I was hypersensitive. 

It's not so easy as simply classfying parenting styles into 4 categories and then shopping for the best style. 

Parenting should have nuances in it. For example, for a hypersensitive kid like me, a very nuanced parenting would be needed, even normal authoritative parenting can seem strict or toxic. The problem is that you're looking at it only from the perspective of a parent but not from the perspective of a child. A relationship is always a 2 way street, if the other person is not comfortable, the relationship is void even if the behavior of the other person looks normal to an outsider. The relationship itself is more important than the relationship style. 

By nuances I mean, it should be case by case and situation by situation. For most kids, a particular set parenting style might look suitable whereas if the kid has problems like example me with hypersensitivity, the parenting will need to be constantly rotated and switched between authoritative and permissive. And also such a switch will not only depend on the case of the child but also on a situation. Certain situations will need permissive behavior from the parent, whereas in certain situations I would want my parents to be stricter with me and take charge. 

This sort of nuanced switching needs a very healthy independent responsible knowledgeable parent. 

I understand that empathy is a 2 way street but can't expect kids to understand and obey  if parents lack basic empathy. 

Even though empathy is a 2 way street it should begin somewhere, generally with the one tasked with greater responsibility and maturity. 

 

 

[No Self]

5 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

@No Self  I was raised in an authoritarian environment by strict parents and I was hypersensitive. 

Yes of course, hence the part about being open to dialogue.

I was raised in a permissive environment which was good in some ways, but it meant that sibling rivalry with my sisters reached pathological proportions. My parents were in their own little world. They had three children, now in their 30s/40s, none of whom are on speaking terms to this day. 

There is definitely nuance involved, but the broad strokes of psychology provides a good foundation to avoid ridiculous errors in judgement.

[Lindsay]

2 hours ago, No Self said:

 

“Obviously the authoritative style will yield the best outcomes”

 

I couldn’t disagree more. Treat children with dignity. Authoritarian parenting pushes the kids away from the parents. High expectations and low emotional responsiveness, love, care, and understanding is terrible for the kids self esteem. It’s like saying you’re a bad person for not practicing the violen that you hate. Parents should accept the children for who they are and be a positive role model. If the children look up to you and have a secure attachment they will grow up to be self motivated adults. There are studies that show how positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement. Forcing kids to comply especially between ages 1-3 and then second place 4-7 years old. Be your child’s friend. Constructive criticism and teaching them the reasoning behind your demands helps them understand that it’s for their own good and not because they are not good enough to be loved. Otherwise you push them away and they confide in their peers. Read the book or watch any lecture by Gabor Mate. That guy is so on point with childhood development and emotional/physical disease. 

[Lindsay]

@No Self
Never mind sorry. I now see that I misread which attachment style you chose lol sorry. Valid argument. ?

[No Self]

@Lindsay It's all good my friend. This is a topic that I'm very interested in, even if I'm not a parent myself.

I used to work in child care and a lot of this stuff was in my studies. Plus I'd already done research just to try and figure out where my own parents went wrong. (Basically everywhere!)

There was a big movement of promoting self-esteem in the 1970s, which gave rise to a lot of infamous errors like 'participation trophies'. It manifests in modern times in the enormous selfishness and entitlement of swaths of the population.

One of the modern movements has been towards exposing children to risk. For example using 'real' scissors rather than those plastic safety scissors. Teaching children about being careful, responsible and aware. Also, promoting imaginative play by giving children a bunch of loose materials from a building site rather than, say, a colouring-in activity where there is a specific 'right' way to do it.

Earlier this year I had 10 year old my niece over and let her drive my V8 car away from public roads. Very real risk and she was nervous, but felt very satisfied with herself afterwards. This is what builds real self-esteem and maturity, not being told she's a special snowflake or whatever people used to say! (As an aside, I made a video on YouTube about it, and some Karen found it offensive so it was taken down!)

[No Self]

2 hours ago, Lindsay said:

Forcing kids to comply especially between ages 1-3 and then second place 4-7 years old. Be your child’s friend.

In the 0-2 age group, modern research says that one should respond without delay to all of the child's wants and needs. Food, attention, whatever. This builds up trust and confidence in the world as per attachment theory. In later years, one has to start to deal with behaviour that is more manipulative and it is more complicated to distinguish actual needs from whining.

I personally like the idea of being a child's friend overall, but there's definitely an art to it. Sometimes discipline and boundary-setting is exactly what the child is appealing for with certain behaviours. A failure to understand this can leads to the bratty behaviour that Bill Maher is admonishing.

[Preety_India]

3 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

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The right creates a fascist system similar to communism. No liberty. Yet they think it's the left that will create communism and take away freedom of speech. But in reality it's the right that decimates freedom of speech more than the left. 

[DocWatts]

8 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

B- But...

But the left did create Communism, Communists still reside in first world countries.

But a big difference is that Communism is (at least in theory, not so much in practice) compatible with Democracy, because the radical egalitarianism at its core isn't antithetical to human rights. The main problem being that it's unworkable in Practice, and prone to the emergence of power structures.

Fascism on the other hand is antithetical to both Democracy and Human Rights, because its core tenets are ethno-supremacy and a mindset of society being made up of groups dominating other groups.

Obviously both ideologies are highly problematic and best avoided, but at the same time it's probably best not to paint a false equivalency between the two.

 

[Preety_India]

19 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

B- But...

But the left did create Communism, Communists still reside in first world countries.

What the right is going to create is 100 times worse than communism and that's fascism. And fascism is more dangerous than nazism. Fascism is cancer. 

 

[Tim R]

13 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

What the right is going to create is 100 times worse than communism and that's fascism. And fascism is more dangerous than nazism. Fascism is cancer. 

 

@Preety_India Yeah, Fascism is pretty damn bad.

But dozens of millions of dead people would strongly disagree with your assumption that communism is any better. 

Your demonization of fascism as the ultimate and unsurpassed evil which "the right" is going to create is both way to generalizing and ignorant.

[Preety_India]

 

1 minute ago, Tim R said:

@Preety_India Yeah, Fascism is pretty damn bad.

But dozens of millions of dead people would strongly disagree with your assumption that communism is any better. 

Your demonization of fascism as the ultimate and unsurpassed evil which "the right" is going to create is both way to generalizing and ignorant.

Both are bad but the right is miscalculating the left. The left will never create Communism. It's like a bad Rumour. Just slander. Left only wants peace for all. 

 

[Tim R]

5 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

 

Both are bad but the right is miscalculating the left. The left will never create Communism. It's like a bad Rumour. Just slander. Left only wants peace for all. 

 

How can you be so sure that

1. "the right" (look, I kinda have a problem with terms like "the right/the left" because they are so generalizing and the total opposite of nuanced thinking, which I value very much) wants to or is going to create fascism? That's a very, very, very harsh accusation, I hope you understand that. 

2. "the right" is miscalculating the left?

3. "the left" is not miscalculating the right?

(PS: those are more or less rhetorical questions, because you can't be sure. At least you shouldn't be sure. Even less so, if your assumptions start with ideas as unsubtle and grossly oversimplifying as "the right/ the left")

 

14 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

Left only wants peace for all. 

That is just such a naive and crude way of thinking... 

 

There's so much more nuance to this.

@Preety_India I'm only attacking your opinions, not you.