Oh Say Can You See?

Here in the US (and no doubt on US programms broadcasted in other countries) there has been quite a bit of discussion lately about patriotism. Therefore, since I haven't posted anything else in a while, I thought I'd do my own critique of love for one's country. From an evolutionary standpoint, patriotism derives from the preference of those like yourself over those who are less so. In a purely biological setting, differences are indicators of genetics and of upbringing.
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Members of a village find the other members attractive because such feelings increase probability of the same genes being propogated, especially when the population is of sufficient size and genetic diversity that ailments don't arise from inbreeding. Xenophobia might be considered an extreme case of this. In a human setting however, our intellect allows us to discern more differences than those of a genetic origin. Traits such as language, culture, dress and religion are differences that distinguish us but have no biological basis, although the instinctual more different = less attractive responce is still in place. Therefore, on an individual basis patriotism stems from an evolutionary process. As will be discussed later, natural selection also serves to perpetuate patriotism. The above form of patriotism, because it is instinctual, I will refer to blind patriotism, the lowest form. Blind patriotism is what gets people to say that "America is the greatest country on Earth" without knowing enough about other countries, or even this one to justify that judgement. Another form of patriotism is more informed. This is the sort of patriotism that says "my country is better than that one because of literacy rates, crime rate, infrastructure, average income, climate, etc." While blind patriotism is about as sensible a thing (in my opionion) to die or kill for as religious conquest or racial cleansing, informed patriotism is what is the current justification for the war in Iraq, the bringing of a better lifestyle to another people: ie spreading democracy. That the military destroyed the Iraqi infrasctructure, which has lead to increases in rates of crime, disease, unemployment, racial cleansing and that the climate can't be fixed is another matter (at least their declared intentions are being recorded as good if their planning wasn't). The third form of patriotism is governmental. When a government has a social contract with its citizenry to look out for its best interests, it is justified in taking advantage of other countries' people for that purpose, just as it is the duty of the other country to stop the first from doing that. As for borders, controlled flow is essential to maintane an inflow of both highly skill and highly unskilled (and therefore cheap) labour, while keeping down poverty levels. Furthermore, governmental patriotism extends into informed patriotism when one claims that country A is better than B because of its form of government; eg. "We're English, our parlamentary system is far superior to that american system because we don't have an electoral college." or "my country could kick your country's ass!" or "if you were better off, we wouldn't export our worst jobs to you." When however, as is often the case, people conflate blind patriotism with governmental patriotism, terrible things happen. Members of the government don't even themselves need to personally have blind patriotism, they just need to utilize it in their constituancy to justify their actions. In the middle east, everyone hates Israel just for being there and being a jewish state among muslim ones. The argument of "it was our/ their land first" is thrown around a tremendous deal. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter in the least who owned the land before. What matters is who owns it now, and who lives there. Claiming a right to property because one's ancestors had possession of it removes personal responsibility from ownership. Just as the sins of the father do not cary to the son, entitlement is not enheritied, it is earned or it is given. A good analogy would be if every black person over the age of fourty in the US claimed that they deserved respect from the younger generation because they faced fire hoses, police and dogs in the fight for civil rights. Everyone should have the civil rights, but the added respect for facing danger only goes to the people who actually faced it. "Respect me, my dad fought for you." says a man. "That's nice, but what have you done?" responds his neighbor. Certainly, in the persuit for personal advantage, people have the right to use whatever argument that they like, especially if it works. The point is that it shouldn't work. The problem lies in that countries that don't succumb to blind patriotism will be overthrown by ones that do. Suppose that two countries start out homogeneous unto themselves, but different from each other. One strives to maintain homogeneaty in its population, while the other accepts people from the first who retain characteristics of their homeland at least initially and gradually come to resemble the average of their new home. Gradually, both countries will be homogeneous again, but will both resemble the one that was resistant foreign influence. Furthermore, an informed patriot may regard immigration as a source of degredation of his or her way of life, but if the new immigrants, who are now protected by governmental contract, have different priorities, then informed patriotism arguments go out the window because the collective metric for judging quality of life has changed. "We brought you democracy" says one. "But you brought with you godlessness and loose ways" says the other. Ultimately, people should not feel indignant in the face of a lack of patriotism, or feel pride in its possession. It is an extension of our biological drive to increase our like kind to the point of domination. Those who are sufficiently intellectual to see both sides of a patriotic dispute will adapt to their surroundings, and ultimately be overtaken by those whose feelings rule even their political actions and aspirations. Thus, mankind is doomed to remain in a primitive state. Stagnation maintained by perpetual change.