I don't really feel that that's the same point.

For example, I live in Vienna. Public transport here is amazing. Housing is pretty great. Education is free and good. Public healthcare is free and really good. I'm going to keep voting and contributing to keep these things good. If things turn bad, the wrong people get into power, and these things will sour, that's sad. But then I can still move somewhere else.

And no matter what happens with my city, it will not change who I am and/or how good/valuable I am.

And also, it really doesn't matter how other places are doing. That's why I really, really disagree with the "patriotism" in the comic. "I'm going to work on my house because it's the best house" is a pretty stupid thing to say. Does that mean if your house isn't the best, there's no point to work on your house? Does that mean you think all other houses suck?

What even is the point of having the "because it's the best house" in there at all?

I improve my house because I live there, that's the right reasoning.

Idk, I feel like one failure of governments is not sharing the successes

That's often the case, that's correct. But that shouldn't be done for the purpose of "because we have the best country/city/...".

Be proud of the things you accomplish, not about where you accomplish them at.

I sure am glad they went back to butt jokes after that comic.

Nice way to put it!

It's a very common thing really. The better a country works and the less the country has to compensate for, the less patriotism there is. And of course vice versa.

Yeah, that's a fair generalization.

Patriotism is loving your country and wanting to do the best for it. Nationalism is the poison version of that.

This is absolutely it.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being proud of impersonal achievements. If one of your parents did something considered pretty great, I think it's generally fine to be proud of it, even though you had no agency in being born to them.

As with anything, though, it's very possible to take it to the extreme. If an achievement or value becomes your entire personality and you begin to actively disparage others on the basis of not-being-that, as you said, that's when I call it one of the bad "-isms."

I see nationalism as a range within that of patriotism, but starting at that extremist point.

Turns out, Schopenhauer is more eloquent than me :)

(The correctly used double negative was confusing for me at first, btw.)

You make a very interesting point I haven't ever thought about before.

While I have always considered myself a patriot to a mild degree, I never associated it with tribalism directly. Even with the many faults of all countries, it's OK to be proud of where you are from. (It does make perfect sense that tribalism is the end goal of state sponsored patriotism though.)

In my mind, the fine line after patriotism was usually nationalism where tribalism runs deep and hate-based rhetoric becomes extremely effective. The definition of a patriot is somewhat twisted at that point. (ie: unless you believe [insert something random], you aren't actually a patriot and therefore an enemy of the state.)

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, btw. Your perspective is something interesting to think about, s'all. (I am leaning on the agreement side, FWIW.)

(For the people reading this that may not realize that I am using the word "nationalism" in a negative context, I am. If that chaps your hide still, replace it with 'christian nationalism' or 'white nationalism' and fuck off. Everyone else, sorry for the disclaimer.)

Bread and games to distract from actual problems. To create loyalty for things that don't deserve loyalty and to push tribalism and "us-vs-them".

No, patriotism isn't harmless fun.

Nationalism is a cancer that has caused millions of deaths. Fuck that. They are tools used to distract from the fact that oligarchs steal everyone's wages and livehoods.