Pride in heritage?

[Jainarayan]

I see it as a claim to tribal affiliation. People derive deep psychic satisfaction from being a part of some tribe.

Especially if one is attracted to some particular trait(s) or accomplishments of that tribe or group.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm not so much proud, as thankful that I'm lucky enough to be the end result of a generally superior genetic makeup. Thanks to whoever you were.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I think interest is fine, but pride is another thing. What does being of Irish or Scottish descent mean or do for me? Why should I take pride in where I came from or who is in my ancestral line? It does not affect me, how I live, who I am in my life now.

As I said, it's fine for curiosity sake. To learn the story of how you came to be, but to take personal pride in something that you had no bearing on whatsoever makes no sense to me.

It depends. For example, I'm African American, Cherokee, Blackfoot, Caurcasian, Asian, and, what was the other? Oh. Mexican most likely.

It was what you have close relations to spiritually and/or hopefully, physically as well. For example, the only thing I know about my Spanish family is that halfof my aunts say we have that in our blood. My grandmother was full blooded blackfoot. No one knows what part of my mother's side is Cherokee. We have Asian but don't know where.

However, our heritage, home, and birthright is African American. We have our own culture, our own ways of living, speaking, and kin. So, it isn't just the relationship I have with my intermediate family and grands and aunts. It is a chain link of how each part of history inlluenced and shaped part of my family's religions and lifestyle.

That is a part of our lives no matter what time period and how they are related to us (in regards to great or great great).

So, if your mother is, say Irish and your father, is say Spanish (from Spain) whichever your upbringing and cultural influences rely are usually for many people where they put their pride and identity to.

I haven't had the advantage of a strong cultural and religious home. However, meeting my family for what seems like the first time feels like I known them for years. So searching about our history isn't a hobby but learning about me.

That's why I personally have pride in it. There are many reasons that are valid, true?

 

[David1967]

Something I've been wondering about lately. Why do people take pride in their ancestry? I mean, it's one thing to have curiosity about where one came from, to look up one's ancestors and be all "Neat! Look at that!" but to have pride based upon it?

I admit, I myself have thought it really cool in the past to be related to William Wallace, but really, what does that mean for me? Nothing. He has nothing to do with who I am now. My existence may be reliant upon certain people meeting certain people and being in the right place at the right time, but what does that mean for me now? Who those people were, how they lived, what their ethnicity or nationality or race or religion was...why should I take any pride in any of it? I had nothing to do with any of that. Not my accomplishments, not my struggles, not my way of life.

Isn't a lot of the separation we see between people due to where or who we came from rather than where or who we are now? What a person's ancestry is, their ethnicity, their race, their religion (mostly a handed down thing), what does that have to do with anything when they are our neighbors, our co-workers, our in-laws?

In this day, in this world, as mixed and melted and diverse as we are, why does where we came from matter more to some people than where we are now? What does it truly matter whose grandparents were of Scottish descent, or whose great great grandmother on their mother's side was Cherokee, or whose family immigrated from Pakistan 2 generations ago? What does that have to do with who someone is as a person? What their personal worth is? Why is the past origins of those related to us a matter of personal pride when we have nothing to do with it?

Understand, I'm talking about pride, not curiosity. It's one thing to have a hobby and find entertainment in learning who met who when and where they came from and how they got there and all. It's like reading the story of how you came to be. I get that. It is pride I'm talking about. It is things like making a to do about being 1/8 Native American when you've never even been associated with anything Native American at all. It is boasting that your line can be traced back to the Mayflower. So what? What does that mean about you? Nothing. Nada. Zip.

All this does is keep reinforcing differences, borders, lines, separations, divisions. As if we are all different and special flowers that belong in certain places in the garden. The garden has overgrown now. The seeds have spread everywhere. What difference does it make now where a certain seed originated? Where the tulips started when they are now mixed with petunias, roses, daises, and so on? What does it really matter?

I agree with you. To me its just neat to know where I came from, but for me to take personal pride in an ancestors accomplishment I had nothing to do with is ridiculous.. but I personally know people who take pride in their ancestry for the simple reason that they get free stuff for it.

 

[Valjean]

Me, I'm a hominin. I try to avoid the tribalism that's divided the world into so many warring factions.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No one has pride in their heritage here?

With me, my heritage is Wagner, Bach, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Goethe, and many others that are culturally relative and significant in the West. But I am none of them. The accomplishments of those such as Wagner, whose symphonies and operas have never really left the main stream or went out of style, is not the accomplishment of all Germans or those with German heritage. To study and learn about my heritage is to open a window into what it means to be human, to see both violent conquests and majestic art, the infliction of great suffering by devils and the gentle healing touch of saints, but nevertheless I am my own person.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

With me, my heritage is Wagner, Bach, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Goethe, and many others that are culturally relative and significant in the West. But I am none of them. The accomplishments of those such as Wagner, whose symphonies and operas have never really left the main stream or went out of style, is not the accomplishment of all Germans or those with German heritage. To study and learn about my heritage is to open a window into what it means to be human, to see both violent conquests and majestic art, the infliction of great suffering by devils and the gentle healing touch of saints, but nevertheless I am my own person.

Your heritage is what makes up our cultures from our arts and music to our philosophies and spiritual ponderings? A collection of experiences, studies, and such of others?

 

[Augustus]

Something I've been wondering about lately. Why do people take pride in their ancestry? I mean, it's one thing to have curiosity about where one came from, to look up one's ancestors and be all "Neat! Look at that!" but to have pride based upon it?

I think it's certainly understandable for people from a minority background. If you don't take pride in your ancestry then it will be forgotten. For the majority, your cultural history is preserved in the history of society as a whole. For many minorities, if you don't do it yourself then nobody else is going to do it for you.

Many Americans take pride in fighting for independence and setting up a free, democratic Republic. A black American might take pride in their ancestors going from slaves, to free men and their struggle for civil rights for the same reason. They might also take issue with hagiography of figures who were complicit in the oppression of their not too distant relatives.

The same sort of applies to anyone though, it's just keeping history alive and creating a sense of identity. It's just a romantic view of where you come from and what this means.

All of us need our own identity and have to create our own myths to bring meaning to our lives, this is just one way to do that.

People travel the world to see far off battlefields where their grandfather was killed in WW1. Looking at tens of thousands of gravestones is one thing, but realising that one of them represents your mother's father would be completely different. Why should someone not want to take pride in such a thing?

Your ancestry can create a sense of the sublime just like looking at the stars or viewing the world from outer space.

A few fanatics take it too far and use it to create hatred, but why should they rob others of a sense of belonging to something greater than the self? Viewing it as a negative thing that only creates divisions is a really a bit myopic.

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

I do not understand where Pride comes into it at all,
Why would i or anyone be proud of a DNA that brings genetic illness,
or wars and bloodshed, conquest, pogroms, etc ......

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I do not understand where Pride comes into it at all,
Why would i or anyone be proud of a DNA that brings genetic illness,
or wars and bloodshed, conquest, pogroms, etc ......

But it also brings art, philosophy, the will to achieve, understand and explore, create grand civilizations, pursue science (including medicine), etc. It is all we are as human beings. Billions of years of organic evolution.

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

Yes, and i suppose any glimmer of pride in my own family/tribe may be
because of survival despite .....
not so sure all the achievement you mentioned brings pride, so much as it
brings responsibility or expectation to also contribute ......

 

[gsa]

Yes, and i suppose any glimmer of pride in my own family/tribe may be
because of survival despite .....
not so sure all the achievement you mentioned brings pride, so much as it
brings responsibility or expectation to also contribute ......

And to defend. Which is one of the key components not yet mentioned in this thread, and yet it is the heart of tribalism.

It is all well and good to take pride in positive aspects of your ancestral background. But the same process creates imagined communities tied by family and usually language and more often than not religion and even shared resources. Scarce resources that can be threatened by outsiders.

And that doesn't usually end with cerebral discussions of white privilege, a critical examination of the role of minorities or even the recognition of the flaws of one's ancestors.

 

[Sunstone]

People take pride in all sorts of things. I had a friend once who was proud of smoking Winston cigarettes because she thought they somehow distinguished and even perhaps defined her as a special person. Whether one takes pride in cigarettes or in ancestors, the underlying mechanism that's at play is the human sense of self. That is, the "I", the ego, or consciousness -- however you want to term it.

 

[gsa]

People take pride in all sorts of things. I had a friend once who was proud of smoking Winston cigarettes because she thought they somehow distinguished and even perhaps defined her as a special person. Whether one takes pride in cigarettes or in ancestors, the underlying mechanism that's at play is the human sense of self. That is, the "I", the ego, or consciousness -- however you want to term it.

Although it seems that with taking pride in ancestry, it is often the case that they are searching for a "we." As is often the case with religion.

A sense of self can only be maintained by differentiation from something outside of it. That's not really what people who are looking to align their identity with their ancestors seem to be searching for. They are looking for a more communal identity, and one that is differentiated as a group, not at the individual level.

 

[Sunstone]

Although it seems that with taking pride in ancestry, it is often the case that they are searching for a "we." As is often the case with religion.

A sense of self can only be maintained by differentiation from something outside of it. That's not really what people who are looking to align their identity with their ancestors seem to be searching for. They are looking for a more communal identity, and one that is differentiated as a group, not at the individual level.

But to be sure, people are quite capable of defining themselves in terms of a group. In fact, it seems to be one of the most common things that people do in psychological terms. They see themselves as at least partly defined by some group they belong to. And though it's a group, and though they only partly define themselves in terms of it, they are quite wiling in general to defend that identity, frequently even to the point of violence -- just as if they were defending their physical selves. Never underestimate the potential scope of the psychological self.

 

[gsa]

But to be sure, people are quite capable of defining themselves in terms of a group. In fact, it seems to be one of the most common things that people do in psychological terms. They see themselves as at least partly defined by some group they belong to. And though it's a group, and though they only partly define themselves in terms of it, they are quite wiling in general to defend that identity, frequently even to the point of violence -- just as if they were defending their physical selves. Never underestimate the potential scope of the psychological self.

Yes, but how much do you see yourself as white? Or even as a member of a group defined by your ancestry?

I suspect that you have a number of self-identifications that precede that one, were you to prioritize.

 

[Sunstone]

Yes, but how much do you see yourself as white? Or even as a member of a group defined by your ancestry?

I suspect that you have a number of self-identifications that precede that one, were you to prioritize.

When it comes to such things as these, priorities for most people are subject to change; often rapid change. I might be thinking of myself as primarily a father one moment, but a few moments later, in response to a political speech I'm listening to, I'm thinking of myself as most importantly an American.

 

[gsa]

When it comes to such things as these, priorities for most people are subject to change; often rapid change. I might be thinking of myself as primarily a father one moment, but a few moments later, in response to a political speech I'm listening to, I'm thinking of myself as most importantly an American.

These identities are contextual, in other words. Which is fair enough.

But some of these identities are more political than others, and some are more susceptible to politicization, and political contexts matter.

 

[Sunstone]

These identities are contextual, in other words. Which is fair enough.

Contextual because, if you think about it, the self is always (for most of us at least) defined in relationship to something.

But some of these identities are more political than others, and some are more susceptible to politicization, and political contexts matter.

That is very true, I think.

 

[Father Heathen]

No one said they were.

But that whole "take pride in someone else's achievements just because you happen to share some physical characteristics" thing.