PATRIOTI I NACIONALISTI
PATRIOTS AND NATIONALISTS

Summary/Abstract: The confusion as to what patriots and what nationalists are is quite common. Some scholars argue that patriots and nationalists are the same; others maintain that there is such a slight difference between the two that it is not worth paying attention to. The author contends that patriots and nationalists differ in many regards, first and foremost in regard to the object of love and concern. Patriotism is love of and concern for the nation-state of which one is a citizen. Nationalism is love of one’s own ethnonational group and concern for the protection and promotion of its interests. Many other distinctions between patriotism and nationalism have been discussed in the text. Local patriotism as a sense of belonging and commitment to a milieu in which one was raised, that is, spent a good part of time while young, is original form of patriotism which means that one has not been taught to feel committed, and how to be committed to that specific milieu. It does happen spontaneously. Local patriotism develops regardless of whether one will it or not to develop. People, one the other hand, have to be trained to nurture patriotic (and national, alike) sentiments – through rituals, ceremonies, public culture, symbols, institutions, etc. The author argues that patriotism is one of the manifestations of a wider phenomenon called groupism which includes, among other things, ‘us’-‘them’ syndrome and overpraising one’s own folk, that is, bias against those who are not part of one’s own group. Nationalism has two basic forms – civil-territorial and ethno-cultural. So does patriotism. Although differently dubbed (e.g., moderate and extremist, constructive and blind), two forms of patriotism basically comprise the same phenomena as two forms of nationalism. Which kind of love and committment has proved stronger, when patriotism and nationalism come into conflict, or compete for supremacy. Although the view, based on the lessons learned from the history, prevails that nationalism as a rule overrides patriotism, one should be critical of such generalizations. The relative strength of patriotism and nationalism has been determined by how systematically and for how long time members of a nation-state and an ethnonational goup, respectively, have been taught to see in their nation-state or ethnonational collective something emphatically valuable, something that is worth fighting for.

• Details
• Contents