Anti-nationalism
An observation I made about people who yell “anti-national”.
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and told myself they do this because they love this country like I do — but I realized — maybe they don’t know how to love in the first place.
They only know how to WORSHIP.
The act of loving isn’t worship. Far from it.
The act of love is looking at something up-close, having the courage to acknowledge everything that’s fucked up about it, and STILL associating with it. The act of love, and being loved, is rooted in deep examination and deep questioning. The act of love IS NOT to preserve something, it is, technically destructive in nature — because when we examine something so closely, our illusions about it are destroyed and its true nature becomes clear.
Questioning everything from the foundation of this country, to the conduct of the founding fathers, to this country’s traditional allegiances and enmities — are all acts of love. Blind preservation of these things is worship. Love is destructive. Everyone in this country had to destroy a little bit of their egos to coexist in this cultural mega-buffet we all eat off of. Everyone had to erode a little bit of their own identities to accept the influence of their neighbors.
Everyone in this country had to shred our differences to fight common problems. This country is MADE of love, not worship.
Therein is the fundamental difference in thinking, I suppose, the concept of blind worship vs love. If only we could convince everyone about this, they might stop using ironic descriptors like “anti- national” in a country that cannot be looked at as one nation.