‘Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind’ A. Einstein
-Intro-
Dear Steemers, this is my second post and even though I promised I’d talk about blockchain and related topics, I felt the need to talk about a main issue that now shapes our society: neo-nationalism.
Nationalism: ‘an extreme form of patriotism marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries’; or simply the idea, my country/people are better than yours.
Moreover, the reason I felt like writing about it is that with recent political events such as the UK’s Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, it’s becoming common to have nationalist and racial opinions, even though it shouldn’t.
-Are we evolving or devolving? -
Patriotism and nationalism are two different things but often, recently, people seem to confuse the two.
(In this blog entry, I will not give political opinions but will express personal ones based on facts.)
So, what did Brexit and the US Election have in common? The use of fake news and facts, to manipulate people and make them focus on hating each other, with the goal of achieving political agendas.
As I like to back my stories with facts, here are some:
-After heavily criticising Clinton for using private emails, the vice president, Mike Pence, did as well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/03/mike-pence-used-private-email-indiana-governor-hacked/
-After basing part of Brexit campaign on ‘less money for Europe and more for the NHS (National health service in the UK) after just a few months the ‘pledge’ was abandoned.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/10/brexit-camp-abandons-350-million-pound-nhs-pledge
-What were the outcomes? -
It’s sad to say that both two events caused an increase in racisms mainly fuelled by nationalist ideas. The same could be said for the French elections, where hate was used by political candidate Marine Le Pen, fortunately without the expected outcome.
The following months after the US election, policies such as Muslim travel ban promoted hatred and racism and increased hate crimes towards Muslims. Not too dissimilar from what Hitler did with Jews.
The same can be said for Brexit, where racial crimes spiked following the British referendum, making life harder for European immigrants in the UK.
-What is the point of all of this? -
I decided to post this on Steemit mainly because on this site there are many open-minded people, hence, this is what the blockchain community promotes.
But I’d like everyone to think whether hate is the way forward. It’s true, it’s easier to hate than love but all this discrimination and nationalist ideas won’t help anyone, if anything they will divide us and make us fight each other.
I’m sure that many people on this site are open minded so feel free to share your opinion regarding the matter.
MATT
‘If you like my posts upvote and follow, if you don’t agree and/or share opinions please comment. Feedback is appreciated, thanks!!’
I hate to disagree, but i think you have nationalism all wrong. Take globalism for example, we have been sending jobs to mexico since the early nineties. US corporations pay mexican workers $3 an hour. So we have robbed a US worker of a job just to enslave a mexican worker. They tell us that we get lower prices but name anything that went down in price even for a month. Automobiles made in mexico are not cheaper, on the contrary, cars have risen more than the rate of inflation for the past 25 years. Putting the health of your own country first is the right thing to do for both parties.
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I agree on that, but it's just the idea of consumerism that brought us to want stuff cheaper even though it doesn't last long, ending up harming our local economy just to buy more goods.
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Its not a bad thing to be proud of your country... to a point. When someone starts thinking their country is better, even because of some legitimately great achievements, that i have a problem with.
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I agree, but it's when you start thinking that the others are worse because they aren't you that it's a bad thing.
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Thinking of one self as being better is not bad.
Blacks are generally better at sports than us whites.
They set the standards that us whites must strive to achieve.
Are we to handicap or shame better black athletes because they keep winning.
Or should we try to up our game.
A few decades ago, Japan was an economic powerhouse, I think they were tamed by trade restrictions, which was wrong, instead, we in the West should have upped our Engineering and manufacturing abilities.
There's nothing wrong with wanting your team to be the best, it moves humanity forward far better than handicapping us all down to the lowest common denominator.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nationalism+vs+globalism
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