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Why MAGA Is a Bad Thing

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
There is a camaraderie that happens when people cooperate in a worthy cause, like pulling out of an economic slump. That's unlike the nationalist's feeling of superiority which can justify ignoring the welfare of the global community to pursue selfish interests.

On more of an individual level sure. just seems easier to motivate people if you first get them to identify as a group then motivate them to support the group.

Team sports, Olympics, for productivity we get taught to motivate people as teams.

Sometimes a team is superior. That motivates the other teams towards better performance. There's good competition and bad competition. It is up to the leaders to make sure bad competition is not allowed.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Sure it does. We can only hope that their training covers the most likely moral issues that the soldier might face.
And I think we can pretty easily find endless examples from around the world -- even very close to home -- where that "training" left the soldier without enough guidance to keep him from being dishonourable discharged, or even killed.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I wonder if that doesn't impose an unreasonable risk on an ordinary soldier with a decent conscience.

There is so much pressure, peer pressure to conform. You are likely to be ostracized by the group, have your livelihood threatened. Sometimes it works out for you and sometimes you get nailed to the cross.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
On more of an individual level sure. just seems easier to motivate people if you first get them to identify as a group then motivate them to support the group.

Team sports, Olympics, for productivity we get taught to motivate people as teams.

Sometimes a team is superior. That motivates the other teams towards better performance. There's good competition and bad competition. It is up to the leaders to make sure bad competition is not allowed.
Do you think countries are like teams? Should they be motivated to compete? You probably agree that that's not a good idea. So, I suggest we don't use the tactics that might work for one and apply them to the other.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
And I think we can pretty easily find endless examples from around the world -- even very close to home -- where that "training" left the soldier without enough guidance to keep him from being dishonourable discharged, or even killed.
True. However, the morality of war overall is making progress. For example, the tolerance for collateral damage is much less now than in WW2.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
True. However, the morality of war overall is making progress. For example, the tolerance for collateral damage is much less now than in WW2.

Yeah, I think humanity is improving, just a few remaining neanderthal enough to cause problems.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
Your explanation, while logical, sounds like a weak attempt to substitute another cause to me. Moreover, in any group, we find people who need to feel like they are the elite, Catholics who feel like they are superior Catholics, for example. I can explain their behavior as arrogance also but you would need to find a different cause than the one you offered for group pride.
I don't know why I would need to do that, in those cases. There's group pride and there's pure arrogance. Not much use making up excuses for the latter.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
True. Humans seem to be intrinsically tribalistic.
I don’t think every nationalist is necessarily a supremacist. Some people genuinely take pride in their own country. That’s fine.
But the overlap of supremacists within certain nationalist circles is a bit hard for me to defend.

It's a line. It's okay to be 'patriotic', but that crosses into 'jingoism' very quickly. I'm more tribal about less important stuff (eg. sports teams), so I kinda see the attraction. But you have to hold yourself to a level of intellectual rigor I think.
Of course, in some groups saying 'holding yourself to intellectual rigor' would out you...lol
 

Watchmen

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Do you think countries are like teams? Should they be motivated to compete? You probably agree that that's not a good idea. So, I suggest we don't use the tactics that might work for one and apply them to the other.
Countries absolutely should compete.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Group pride has, throughout history, been thought of as a virtue. That's a mistake. Group pride is actually disguised arrogance because we know intuitively that the man who is especially proud of being Irish and Catholic would be just as proud if, by some twist of fate, he had been raised to think of himself as a German and Lutheran. It isn't that his groups are wonderful. It's that HE is wonderful and they are HIS groups.

The ever-present other side of the Group Pride coin is Group Prejudice: Our nation is superior to theirs! Our religion is superior to theirs! Our tribe is superior to theirs! Arrogant group pride has been the root cause of most wars throughout history.

Another ever-present facet of group pride is arrogant entitlement. When we humans feel superior to others, the moral rules which govern the behavior of ordinary people don't seem to apply to us.

In my opinion, all humans are burdened with an arrogance problem to some extent. I think the MAGA people are burdened just a tad more.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with making America great again and wanting to show ones pride and solidarity with kin minded people.

Things like entitlement and the like tend to be non exclusive, and applies to just about any group or individuals who feel they are owed or expected to benefit with something or other that they presently don't have or possess.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
My problem isn't with the idea of making America great. Its with what they think makes America great. Trump is an egotistical, xenophobic anti-intellectual and encourages that trait among others. His 'great' is the bottom line for his and his cronies pocket books, at the expense of people he deems unworthy, and argues that their unworthiness is self-inflicted. Things like ecological or diplomatic long term damage, or long term sustainability is just not his problem. I'd say he was a Randian, if I thought he were intelligent enough to read the book.

So yeah. 'MAGA,' in its current colloquiallism is a bad idea.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
There is a camaraderie that happens when people cooperate in a worthy cause, like pulling out of an economic slump. That's unlike the nationalist's feeling of superiority which can justify ignoring the welfare of the global community to pursue selfish interests.
There once was a time when nationalism was progressive.
The nation replaced the monarch as a sovereign. In Germany and many other countries nationalism widened the "tribe" from your local fiefdom to the country.
Europe is half on its way to replace the nation with the union, widening the tribe even more. But nationalism is still too strong and holding us back.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
At that time they were simply a political party. The atrocities came later. Anyone can see it was a bad move in hindsight.
More people should have seen it earlier. "Mein Kampf" was already out and for anyone to read. Hitler was in prison for the Munich Putsch. All the signs were there.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Well, that tends to happen when your country was firebombed to rubble, split up and occupied for decades and subjected to an intense de-Nazification program. Japan went through something similar.
The problem is that the east was never really de-nazified. Now we have "die Linke" (remnants of the former SED) and the "AfD" which is a conglomerate of right-wingers, unteachable neo nazis and many east Germans who really didn't like the "real socialism" and switched over to the other extreme.
But "die Linke" is now a respected democratic party and the AfD is slowly dissolving from inner conflicts.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Definitely. You can't keep shaming a nation forever, especially when so many other countries have a history that includes the same atrocities or even worse. Time to move on. It's a new century. Remember the dead and let them rest.
Too many Germans still feel guilty for what their grandparents or great-grandparents have done. They have to learn the difference between guilt and responsibility. There should be no shame or guilt in being a German, we only need to remember to be responsible to never let something like the Third Reich happen again.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
In my opinion, all humans are burdened with an arrogance problem to some extent. I think the MAGA people are burdened just a tad more.
It's that "again" part that is bothersome. Because that again includes a past where many of us had fewer rights. Worse pollutions. An economy that worked fewer people than it works for now. America has always been about taking steps forward. "Again" means we go backwards.
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Group pride has, throughout history, been thought of as a virtue. That's a mistake. Group pride is actually disguised arrogance because we know intuitively that the man who is especially proud of being Irish and Catholic would be just as proud if, by some twist of fate, he had been raised to think of himself as a German and Lutheran. It isn't that his groups are wonderful. It's that HE is wonderful and they are HIS groups.

The ever-present other side of the Group Pride coin is Group Prejudice: Our nation is superior to theirs! Our religion is superior to theirs! Our tribe is superior to theirs! Arrogant group pride has been the root cause of most wars throughout history.

Another ever-present facet of group pride is arrogant entitlement. When we humans feel superior to others, the moral rules which govern the behavior of ordinary people don't seem to apply to us.

In my opinion, all humans are burdened with an arrogance problem to some extent. I think the MAGA people are burdened just a tad more.

If you are talking about group pride to the point of Ultra Nationalism and Fascism, those were the foundations of Nazi Germany and the Apartheid government. Ultra Nationalism I am sure always leads to oppression of other tribes and war. Since America has a Neo Nazi contingent (as seen in Charlottesville) then ultra nationalism is an issue that should be addressed.

Ultra Nationalists like Nazi's and the Broedebond always have a narrative that the nation had a previous mythical golden age which was racially pure and that it is the mission of the group to purify the nation and race and create a revolution that re ushers in the golden age into modern society. MAGA certainly sounds like the golden age myth which is an ingredient in the white supremacy movements.

I don't say that just nationalist pride is wrong though, because I think that people should feel pride in their country and heritage and want the country to be great. This is the equivalent of an individual taking pride in their accomplishments and achievements which is good for self esteem. But this mustn't reach the point of being racial pride because that is very toxic and obviously not reflective of reality.
 
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Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Blatantly supremist views, though, are woke
If it's black.

Could you identify a supremist statement from trump?

Such racist fever as I see in the USA is not from
Trump or anything maga.

I doubt that Trump is a white supremacist. But certainly his message gels with white supremacist groups. So why would those two groups messages overlap?

The only Black Supremacists that I know about are the Hebrew Israelites and most people I know would condemn them.
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Would you have cheered the German nationalists on in 1933?

You are conflating nationalist with ultra nationalism. If the Germans were saying that all Germans, devoid of race, gender etc, should have pride in their country then that would have been OK. But they were Ultra Nationalist, which means that the viewed a select group in their country as only German, the pure race, based on racial lines and excluded all others from being German, and consider the true Germans better than everybody else. This lead to the oppression of many people. Thinking that the pure race is superior to all else in culture and biology is very different to having high national self esteem.
 
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