Okay, I have German heritage (and Slav heritage if that counts for anything) and you are badly mistaken.
Not only is Goethe a bad person for being anti semitic, kinda racist, but also he sold ten(s) of thousand soldiers (who were often pressed into military service) as slave soldiers to the US, but also he used what amounts to slave labour in the mines/road construction he oversaw and lead to cruel harshly exploitative policies in those mines.
Furthermore it is a dog whistle in Germany to say "muh heritage" so no, except for reactionaries and a few "normies" this reads right wing, in addition what is this "German heritage" supposed to be? Before 1870 there was no Germany, but only a political disunited bundle of small semi-feudalist states. To take a person of ~1780 to 1830 (Goethe) as heritage is kinda disengenious.
We can’t just take the Nazis as defining Germany for all time
This is revisionist take and in German left circles or academic non left circles would get you silenced hard.
Germany has an incredible artistic, philosophical, and literary history even compared to the other big European powers
Is culturchauvinistic, too.
Germany’s is pretty alright.
No. You just don't know about "our" "heritage" and history.
when Hitler never even won a fucking election
The NSDAP won plenty elections, yes the Machtergreifung [seizure of power] did follow not cause they had the majority in the Reichtsag, but that isn't necessary to seize power for fascists as Mussolini showed, too. Controlling the police institutions of the federal and state levels are good enough.
The idea that you have to lead the majority government (at best only with your party) is idealist and might be based in an understanding of legitimacy of governments by the amount of seats they hold in government which isn't the case.
much less represent the will of the bulk of the German people
Of course not, Germans should be rightly proud of the good things about their culture.
But, there's a difference between "I love my country, it's culture, and the cool things we've done as a people. It's the best country for me to thrive in." and "I'm a patriot".
Patriot (at least in the anglosphere and especially outside the USA) implies a militant defense of national culture and usually the political system, if not an outright "Best country in the world" supremacist statement.
It's not just shorthand for Nationalist, but outright Revanchist sentiment. When I think of an Australian "Patriot" I think immediately of a fascist gang with Eureka flag tattoos beating up teachers for talking about Captain Cook with a critical eye.
In Germany we had plenty studies done, turns out there is no functional difference between patriot and nationalist. Those who checked patriot boxed had the same sentiments as nationalists in othering others, being prone to authoritarian thought, diminishing fascism etc.
Also I want to highlight that the talk Skoubalon does led to the following sentence:
Of course not, Germans should be rightly proud of the good things about their culture.
This strengthens the ideas of Germans existing as a distinct people, strengthens the ideas of a good culture of Germany (which Skoubalon did previous also claim to have existed and be (more) relevant than Fascism - thus continuity of it till today and the things before leading to it) and that it is okay to be "proud of ones culture", which is often a hard dog whistle. Not thinking they are dog whistling, but sure that they are using talking points that would get applouded by the reactionaries in Germany.
I agree with pretty much all of this, and I get that any display of cultural attachment can be fraught at best in Germany. "Proud" can be a (softer) dog whistle here too, and I perhaps used the wrong term.
"People of any origin who live in Germany are allowed to like and feel attachment to good things that happen to be in Germany, both current and historical. The Fischbrötchen isn't Fascist." is what I was aiming for.
That said left needs to be able to say that it's ok to like the place you live in, while engaging with the fact that all the good things are always tangled up in an antagonism with the bad parts. One that can't be fully resolved, only progressed.
To be internationalist doesn't mean to float in a disembodied sea of enlightenment universalism, or to say only the cultures of the Third World have any validity (even though they must be defended from imperialism.) To engage with local culture in the west without enabling Fascism is a hard problem for leftists but we need to work with it.
Patriotism =/= supremacism =/= revanchism, these are all very distinct categories from each other.
followed by
It just means that you have a special relationship with your family that you don’t have with others.
So people have a special relation (akin to a family and thus maybe based on love and solidarity) to "their" nation? I disagree except for the structuring of ones life. A nation and the exclusion of others which comes from nation states esp. those who are based on blood like the German one does (till recently having German blood was enough to claim citizenship, but having lived here for 3 generations wasn't).
I understand what you mean with your arguments, they just feel too close to the talking points of the identitarians in Germany for me to be taken seriously and without rejection.
I guess we're talking about semantics at this point.
To me, and to most people I know, "Patriotism" is a substantially stronger statement than "I love my country", and even that is much much weaker than what the sort of wanker who would actually come out and say it in public would be trying to say.
Maybe this is an Australian/New Zealand specific thing, because of how our national character is tied up in disastrous colonial military action. Maybe it's a softer meaning where you live and doesn't have those connotations.
But I have never met anyone in real life who would describe themselves as a Patriot who hasn't been a chud, including the people I know who are centre-right and working class.
Yeah, if someone says they're a "German Patriot", no one thinks they're talking about Dirndls and Goethe. Ditto the USA.
deleted by creator
Okay, I have German heritage (and Slav heritage if that counts for anything) and you are badly mistaken.
Not only is Goethe a bad person for being anti semitic, kinda racist, but also he sold ten(s) of thousand soldiers (who were often pressed into military service) as slave soldiers to the US, but also he used what amounts to slave labour in the mines/road construction he oversaw and lead to cruel harshly exploitative policies in those mines.
Furthermore it is a dog whistle in Germany to say "muh heritage" so no, except for reactionaries and a few "normies" this reads right wing, in addition what is this "German heritage" supposed to be? Before 1870 there was no Germany, but only a political disunited bundle of small semi-feudalist states. To take a person of ~1780 to 1830 (Goethe) as heritage is kinda disengenious.
This is revisionist take and in German left circles or academic non left circles would get you silenced hard.
Is culturchauvinistic, too.
No. You just don't know about "our" "heritage" and history.
The NSDAP won plenty elections, yes the Machtergreifung [seizure of power] did follow not cause they had the majority in the Reichtsag, but that isn't necessary to seize power for fascists as Mussolini showed, too. Controlling the police institutions of the federal and state levels are good enough.
The idea that you have to lead the majority government (at best only with your party) is idealist and might be based in an understanding of legitimacy of governments by the amount of seats they hold in government which isn't the case.
Is also a bad take, but I will not talk about it.
deleted by creator
Of course not, Germans should be rightly proud of the good things about their culture.
But, there's a difference between "I love my country, it's culture, and the cool things we've done as a people. It's the best country for me to thrive in." and "I'm a patriot".
Patriot (at least in the anglosphere and especially outside the USA) implies a militant defense of national culture and usually the political system, if not an outright "Best country in the world" supremacist statement.
It's not just shorthand for Nationalist, but outright Revanchist sentiment. When I think of an Australian "Patriot" I think immediately of a fascist gang with Eureka flag tattoos beating up teachers for talking about Captain Cook with a critical eye.
In Germany we had plenty studies done, turns out there is no functional difference between patriot and nationalist. Those who checked patriot boxed had the same sentiments as nationalists in othering others, being prone to authoritarian thought, diminishing fascism etc.
Also I want to highlight that the talk Skoubalon does led to the following sentence:
This strengthens the ideas of Germans existing as a distinct people, strengthens the ideas of a good culture of Germany (which Skoubalon did previous also claim to have existed and be (more) relevant than Fascism - thus continuity of it till today and the things before leading to it) and that it is okay to be "proud of ones culture", which is often a hard dog whistle. Not thinking they are dog whistling, but sure that they are using talking points that would get applouded by the reactionaries in Germany.
I agree with pretty much all of this, and I get that any display of cultural attachment can be fraught at best in Germany. "Proud" can be a (softer) dog whistle here too, and I perhaps used the wrong term.
"People of any origin who live in Germany are allowed to like and feel attachment to good things that happen to be in Germany, both current and historical. The Fischbrötchen isn't Fascist." is what I was aiming for.
That said left needs to be able to say that it's ok to like the place you live in, while engaging with the fact that all the good things are always tangled up in an antagonism with the bad parts. One that can't be fully resolved, only progressed.
To be internationalist doesn't mean to float in a disembodied sea of enlightenment universalism, or to say only the cultures of the Third World have any validity (even though they must be defended from imperialism.) To engage with local culture in the west without enabling Fascism is a hard problem for leftists but we need to work with it.
deleted by creator
followed by
So people have a special relation (akin to a family and thus maybe based on love and solidarity) to "their" nation? I disagree except for the structuring of ones life. A nation and the exclusion of others which comes from nation states esp. those who are based on blood like the German one does (till recently having German blood was enough to claim citizenship, but having lived here for 3 generations wasn't).
I understand what you mean with your arguments, they just feel too close to the talking points of the identitarians in Germany for me to be taken seriously and without rejection.
deleted by creator
I guess we're talking about semantics at this point.
To me, and to most people I know, "Patriotism" is a substantially stronger statement than "I love my country", and even that is much much weaker than what the sort of wanker who would actually come out and say it in public would be trying to say.
Maybe this is an Australian/New Zealand specific thing, because of how our national character is tied up in disastrous colonial military action. Maybe it's a softer meaning where you live and doesn't have those connotations.
But I have never met anyone in real life who would describe themselves as a Patriot who hasn't been a chud, including the people I know who are centre-right and working class.
deleted by creator
Nerd
deleted by creator