Deliberations about Alternations in the Understanding of Patriotism Today

Abstract

Patriotism is the love for one’s homeland and country, but in a very literal and rather aggressive sense. It is associated with sacrificing even one's own life to defend the country. Such an understanding has been - and still is - associated with an extreme species of nationalism, for which one’s own nation is prized above everything and other nations are despised and hated. In this paper I consider transformations, which  our understanding of patriotism undergoes  today, and whether these are changes in the very essence of the concept and whether they reach a greater social and cultural awareness of humanity as well as, possibly, of the changes in the concepts of homeland, nation, and country. I also consider some changes in the understanding of humanity as all mankind and in the identification with the communities one chooses to live in – not necessarily the same places where one was born – as well as in the understanding of the nature of bonding with a given or  a chosen community. Finally, I consider the possibility of cosmopolitan patriotism.