Gratitude is probably the most popular among the grounds adduced for patriotic duty. Echoing Socrates in Plato's Crito (51c-51d), Maurizio Viroli writes: “… We have a moral obligation towards our country because we are indebted to it. We owe our country our life, our education, our language, and, in the most fortunate cases, our liberty. If we want to be moral persons, we must return what we have received, at least in part, by serving the common good”
In this respect my nationality should be Dutch and not British. Holland has given me good jobs, excellent medical treatments and a great standard of living. Whereas Britain gave me a rotten education, chronic medical care, a mouth full of fillings and the discrimination of social class.
A recent poll sugests that the English rate themselves the least patriotic nation in Europe.Almost half said their country had lost its identity in the face of European interference and political correctness.The findings were published in advance of St George’s Day which, as two thirds of those polled did not know, is on April 23. They showed that on average, English people rate their patriotism at slightly below six on a scale out of ten, behind the Scots, Welsh and Irish and far in the wake of the Dutch, the most patriotic people on the continent.
However, When the Great War broke out in 1914 a wave of patriotism swept Britain. The High Street chain Woolworths responded with a series of cards that introduced the key personalities, battleships and battlefields of the conflict. The cards give an intriguing insight into how the War was presented as it happened.
As far as patriotism world wide... If you type patriotism into Google you get 19,000 results, the majority of which seem to be about the USA!
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. Voltaire
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