We've established that a country is to its citizens what the home is to the family. *Any* rule and principle applied there also applies to your relationship with country - however complicated. Any idea about it that defeats this idea is eccentric to start with. That being established, let's move on to the next core truth about states and nations.
Any country in the modern era - unless you're a tribe that fought off the influence of the modern world - is an intentional economic concept. If they're successful at it, they end up happy and sufficient. If they aren't, and they make that colossal mistake, they are doomed. The key is in their economics. If they can balance their needs and strengths to be a happy, sufficient society, they got it right. If they did that with head-over-heels ideas about cultural, historical, political and social identity issues, they failed to prioritize sensibly.
Identity at the cost of balanced economics, even the most basic, is a slippery slope. While identity is intrinsic—the default baggage we come with, economics is not something we have to introduce. The only way our way of life survived up to now is because there was a natural economic system that helped it survive, like a hand in glove thing (one that isn't bad). That's basically the story of every identity that survived. Sometimes it took a naturally-skewed economic system and the society at the time was simple. Their identity was their way of life and was the only world they knew.
There was no rationalization vis-à-vis another such way of life—hence, there was no universal consensus on good, bad, best, worst, sensible, mindless, healthy or unhealthy. The tradition of their way of life was honoured with any price it asked, even ones we abhor today like rape, women being second citizens, honour killings etc. It was sacred above all else, despite the costs. Now with better sense, enlightenment, reason and a wide education, we can see the difference between what we didn't know then and whether the honour of our traditions is actually worth it. We also realise that the economics of it needs to make sense, too—just like we realise that it must not come at the cost of identity, just like we understand the better and best of what kind of economics it took for that identity to sustain over centuries up to now.
Once we reach this point of the argument, it is easy to understand the archetype naysayer. They are the ones who are brainwashed into a cultural loss theory. They are the ones who missed the bus on the rationalization. To sympathize with their refusal to adapt is easy: they have too much to hold onto to let go off. Here enters the isolated pride factor: when your way of life, which was never challenged so far, is drowned in a sea of multiple identities from around you and it gets rationally picked on for its inherent flaws. You'd naturally jump up to defend it. But if you listen to the newer ideas around you, and realize that growing out can be difficult sometimes (because your world so far was small), you'll see that it doesn't really stand for a lot of things good (or better). Maybe it's time for change?
You're left with choosing between fighting for pride of the generations of your way of life(honour) and pride in how that helps you (and your tribe) become a better human(s), us become a better society and the world become a better place (sense) i.e. choose to be stubborn or choose to learn something new everyday. With choice #2, you have the privilege of being a part of something better. With the other one, you could very well be digging your own grave / cultural septic tank which may never die but seethe its own poison ignorance that you never be able to undo.
With your own propagated cultural loss theory, isolated pride factor and that cultural septic tank, you get an ideology that opts for identity over economics with its own bias that justifies one for the other. It shows contemporarily in right wing mass propaganda, all over the world, that is largely based on intentionally created untruths from people who are charged with identity, first. This thinking is a large blind spot that blinds them to objectivity - that leads them to unflinching loyalty that's beyond reason. When it is reasoned, it is defended with information and logic that even the brightest get selective with, so as to make sure they don't defeat idea in their head. And they make the transition so smooth! Their ideas find a home, which is no less than a target, that desperately ensures its survival—at any cost. They choose culture over sense, when the two shouldn't be a mutually exclusive option, just like economics over identity (or even vice versa) shouldn't be the political choice democratic citizens are offered.
We need to be clear: identity cannot survive with the economics that allow it to and those economics should not be stretched unreasonably and non-sensibly just to maintain an identity the time of which has come (for change or end). With the same time, we learn and realise new things that, sometimes, should be instead, and disown and discard what they replace. Sometimes, we don't have to be this extreme. We can still honour our past, in our future, as long as it is in itself honourable. When it isn't, just the good memories from it will do for keeps.
We need to stop restricting women from education, because all our system requires them to do is sit at home and take care of the family while we do the opposite for the men because they are the ones who are supposed to be the bread earners. We need to rethink a special status for cows for religious-funded reasons despite knowing the roles cow-based products once they have passed usabilility as animals. These are just some examples. There are so many, many more, just around you.
For those who insist otherwise, I get your heartbreak but you're holding the clock back. The pit you're digging doesn't work for you and it certainly doesn't open the doors of the future while you happily wallow in your illusion. You need to get off that drug. All of us need to watch our political choices so that they are not lopsided leaving an economy in balance while we celebrate values that we are sacrificing that economy for.
Any country in the modern era - unless you're a tribe that fought off the influence of the modern world - is an intentional economic concept. If they're successful at it, they end up happy and sufficient. If they aren't, and they make that colossal mistake, they are doomed. The key is in their economics. If they can balance their needs and strengths to be a happy, sufficient society, they got it right. If they did that with head-over-heels ideas about cultural, historical, political and social identity issues, they failed to prioritize sensibly.
Identity at the cost of balanced economics, even the most basic, is a slippery slope. While identity is intrinsic—the default baggage we come with, economics is not something we have to introduce. The only way our way of life survived up to now is because there was a natural economic system that helped it survive, like a hand in glove thing (one that isn't bad). That's basically the story of every identity that survived. Sometimes it took a naturally-skewed economic system and the society at the time was simple. Their identity was their way of life and was the only world they knew.
There was no rationalization vis-à-vis another such way of life—hence, there was no universal consensus on good, bad, best, worst, sensible, mindless, healthy or unhealthy. The tradition of their way of life was honoured with any price it asked, even ones we abhor today like rape, women being second citizens, honour killings etc. It was sacred above all else, despite the costs. Now with better sense, enlightenment, reason and a wide education, we can see the difference between what we didn't know then and whether the honour of our traditions is actually worth it. We also realise that the economics of it needs to make sense, too—just like we realise that it must not come at the cost of identity, just like we understand the better and best of what kind of economics it took for that identity to sustain over centuries up to now.
Once we reach this point of the argument, it is easy to understand the archetype naysayer. They are the ones who are brainwashed into a cultural loss theory. They are the ones who missed the bus on the rationalization. To sympathize with their refusal to adapt is easy: they have too much to hold onto to let go off. Here enters the isolated pride factor: when your way of life, which was never challenged so far, is drowned in a sea of multiple identities from around you and it gets rationally picked on for its inherent flaws. You'd naturally jump up to defend it. But if you listen to the newer ideas around you, and realize that growing out can be difficult sometimes (because your world so far was small), you'll see that it doesn't really stand for a lot of things good (or better). Maybe it's time for change?
You're left with choosing between fighting for pride of the generations of your way of life(honour) and pride in how that helps you (and your tribe) become a better human(s), us become a better society and the world become a better place (sense) i.e. choose to be stubborn or choose to learn something new everyday. With choice #2, you have the privilege of being a part of something better. With the other one, you could very well be digging your own grave / cultural septic tank which may never die but seethe its own poison ignorance that you never be able to undo.
With your own propagated cultural loss theory, isolated pride factor and that cultural septic tank, you get an ideology that opts for identity over economics with its own bias that justifies one for the other. It shows contemporarily in right wing mass propaganda, all over the world, that is largely based on intentionally created untruths from people who are charged with identity, first. This thinking is a large blind spot that blinds them to objectivity - that leads them to unflinching loyalty that's beyond reason. When it is reasoned, it is defended with information and logic that even the brightest get selective with, so as to make sure they don't defeat idea in their head. And they make the transition so smooth! Their ideas find a home, which is no less than a target, that desperately ensures its survival—at any cost. They choose culture over sense, when the two shouldn't be a mutually exclusive option, just like economics over identity (or even vice versa) shouldn't be the political choice democratic citizens are offered.
We need to be clear: identity cannot survive with the economics that allow it to and those economics should not be stretched unreasonably and non-sensibly just to maintain an identity the time of which has come (for change or end). With the same time, we learn and realise new things that, sometimes, should be instead, and disown and discard what they replace. Sometimes, we don't have to be this extreme. We can still honour our past, in our future, as long as it is in itself honourable. When it isn't, just the good memories from it will do for keeps.
We need to stop restricting women from education, because all our system requires them to do is sit at home and take care of the family while we do the opposite for the men because they are the ones who are supposed to be the bread earners. We need to rethink a special status for cows for religious-funded reasons despite knowing the roles cow-based products once they have passed usabilility as animals. These are just some examples. There are so many, many more, just around you.
For those who insist otherwise, I get your heartbreak but you're holding the clock back. The pit you're digging doesn't work for you and it certainly doesn't open the doors of the future while you happily wallow in your illusion. You need to get off that drug. All of us need to watch our political choices so that they are not lopsided leaving an economy in balance while we celebrate values that we are sacrificing that economy for.
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