Patriotism and Stumblingblocks

Well…from a 5GW perspective, patriotism might as well be a form of racism, in the sense that Dan has given: “both are forms of in-group favoritism”.

This of course ties in with:

• Dan’s recent post on Jesusism-Paulism, Part VI: Embrace and Extend;
• Dan’s highlight of a Gene Expression post by Razib, at Dreaming 5GW;
• Some thoughts given in Emersonian Circles at D5GW;
• And the Kinder, Gentler approach to 5GW.

The point is, I think, that conducting 5GW will be impossible for anyone who calls himself a patriot — whether jingoist or not — because the complex global system, static, and the necessity for co-optation will require loving one’s enemies as well as we love ourselves.

Now, of course you might say that we can love them while hating their nation, also while loving our own nation as patriots; but this in-depth loving that would seek to “embrace and extend” in order to co-opt so many hands in the field, working the system from multiple sides, might require that we embrace whatever national identity they have — even while we try to extend it into becoming something else.  I.e., one might be patriotic and build a deformed sphere (h.t. to Isaac), but that’s not the whole Sphere and is likely to collapse or roll into a corner from which it can’t extract itself.

Or in other words:  united we stand, divided we fall.  Division along national borders and along national identities (within our own psyches) represents stumblingblocks, or limitations, or occasions for falling.

So in a sense, “Transnational Progressives” would be a very good alternate name for 5GWers — but, heh, I would think that the term needs to be coopted, embraced and extended beyond how it is now used, first!

[CGW]

I would in particular like to thank Isaac for sending me the quote from Henry David Thoreau, now included as an update to “Emersonian Circles.”  For context, I’ll add part of it here:

We say, justly, that the weak person is “flat,” — for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction; a straw longitudinally; a board in the direction of its edge; a knee transversely to its grain; but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out on one side, and depressed on the other; or may be likened to a hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest bulk is intended.

[Henry David Thoreau, from “The Service”]

Also for context, I would highlight by linking a portion of the book Romans from The New Testament, Webster’s 1611 translation, and pull out the reference:

RO 14:13  Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brother’s way, or an occasion of falling.

As a metaphor for 5GW, “stumblingblock” is very good.  As Arherring recently pointed out, when considering the issue of propaganda,

I think the main difference between the two is that propaganda seeks to confuse and misdirect thought while 5GW seems more likely to guide and re-contextualize thought.

[Arherring, commenting on “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”]

Similar observations have been made in many posts on D5GW and elsewhere, particularly when also considering the issue of cooptation:  Unlike 4GW and even prior generations of warfare, 5GW will seek to gain “hands in the field”, or willing and motivated actors able to move forward.  Exactly where they end up going and the ultimate results of their actions may be unknown to them at the beginning of the journey, but they’re not being hopelessly confused and are not being thrown down while trying to journey.

So how does this relate to the issue of patriotism?

Dan of tdaxp has recently focused on the concept of “embrace and extend” as a successful method of competition when an opponent is either too strong or too entrenched (defended) to defeat by traditional blow-‘em-up or fence-‘em-in methods.  In his latest addition to his Jesusism-Paulism series, Dan looks at Christianity and Microsoft to find how each would embrace the ideas of a strong competitor by co-opting those ideas and extending them:

Micrososoft’s response to Java was smarter. Instead of condemning Java, calling it a stupid language, and ignoring it, Microsoft opted to embrace and extend. Microsoft devised Visual J++, an implementation for Java that actually provided the best interface for developing Java applications yet.

[Dan, “Jesusism-Paulism, Part VI”]

In a similar way, as the Christian church spread throughout Europe, it was able to coopt nativist traditions and frameworks:

The Jesusist-Paulists of the Catholic Church behaved the same way. They embraced the old cultures of Europe, refusing to look away when revulsion would have been easier than love. And they extended the old orders, giving new life to the status quo ante sancata romana ecclesia. For instance, in southern France where the old Senatorial families still held sway, the family names of the early bishops were the same as the family names of the last Senators. In Ireland, where an indigenous Church had grown after the abduction of the slave boy Patricius, Romanization was handled primarily through institutional fusion. And in the Viking North, the Church refused to look away from the bloody tribes — instead embracing them.

[ibid.]

A casual observer might see both, an example of successful evolutionary resolution to conflict and a definition for resiliency, in these examples.  [For several weeks now, I’ve been thinking that resiliency must by nature be evolutionary; it’s not about being able to maintain the old forms whatever come, but about being able to change constantly without hitting a roadblock.  Or stumblingblock.  But that’s a subject for another post…]

Similarly, in Dan’s highlight of a Gene Expression post written by Razib, the overwhelming resiliency of religious believing (i.e., forget for now particular faiths), is so pronounced and seemingly unassailable, the atheist Razib suggests embracing that tendency for superstitious believing while ultimately extending it:

Religion is a complex phenomenon, and if we as unbelievers are to engage it and turn it to our own ends our own models must be sufficiently nuanced and our courses of action multi-faceted and conditional.

[Razib, from “Against the tide and the necessity of tacking”]

In other words, perhaps, cause it to evolve in a particular direction.  (How’s that for wording, you atheist geneticists!  ;) )  However, attempting to force it to evolve would probably manifest as a 4GW effort, not a 5GW effort.  The believers will recoil, their faith will redouble, if you attack it.  But if you can help them to willingly and eagerly move in a direction that will ultimately cause their belief to evolve, they will see their new location as a wondrous discovery they have made on their own…

So, patriotism.  Well, I think my comment on tdaxp explains my thoughts on it pretty well.  If you stoke patriotism, you stoke division — actual national borders, but also psychological limits which go to limit the sphere of activity possible for your hands in the field — that is, you place a stumblingblock on your brother’s path while placing huge stumblingblocks on the path for every foreigner who feels patriotic about his own nation.  The old cliché, whatever wall we build to keep others out locks us inside.  If you are an avowed patriot, you may not even see that wall; but your actions will still be bounded by it.

Is it bad to love one’s own country?  Ah, but remember the difference between particularized loves and Love.  How can you embrace and extend what you do not really embrace?  Thus you shrink; thus you become flat, or a flat line.

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Addendum:  As often occurs when I’m writing a post and waxing the philosophical dream quest — to mix metaphors — I forgot a thread of thought I intended to include.  Arherring had written “A Kinder, Gentler Definition” in response to a previous post about kindler, gentler warfare (question mark), mildly questioning whether it was actually warfare.   I answered with, among other things, an introduction of the possible kinetic activities occurring during such warfare:

1. in the short term, the kinetic activities of targeted actors may well take a destructive course, especially since early stages of a 5GW campaign will have preexisting “dreams” (targets’) with which to work; and
2. that a stick can be used from love as well as a carrot, sometimes more effectively. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Tough love. Pick your cliché.

It is the second point I would tie to the subject of stumblingblocks and patriotism.

Quite possibly, others already have stumblingblocks in place all around them, stumblingblocks that will need removing during this process of “embracing and extending” — particularly, in the process of extending.

If we consider psychological stumblingblocks, we might wonder how best to remove those; and, indeed, whether their removal might lead to a great confusion, or many more stumblingblocks.

If we consider how psychological stumblingblocks have manifested over time, we might even wonder whether, e.g.,  removing hateful regimes would be a requirement for removing those psychological stumblingblocks.  Unfortunately, we might be foolish to attempt such a thing if even more stumblingblocks are laid down in place of the old.

And if patriotism is indeed a form of psychological stumblingblock, we might ponder how we might remove the sense of patriotism keeping others tripping or trapped, or shrunken rather than extending and spherical.  (To metaphorize, again.)  On the other hand, the very concept of patriotism might be coopted: embraced — as it often is — but extended — which it rarely is.