Likely as a measure to combat the long and rampant waves of hardline pro-west, pro-imperialist liberal professors and academics. There are still plenty of them, even in the best universities poisoning the minds of students (Hillary Clinton in an old speech had referred to the potential of the internet age youth rising up to side with the pro-US side against their own country).
Not sure what exact examples of what they mean by “Patriotic Education” and would like to see what ends up being put to paper. Because I think that sometimes it seems like the better phrasing would be focus on learning about Civics and making sure kids are learning to care about that stuff. As it seems to be something that most folks in the US don’t really understand at all. Which is why we are getting more and more elected officials that don’t actually know what their office is for or how it is supposed to function. At best they know that they can run on wild shit to get clout. After they win it is chaos in trying to purge or change things that aren’t the issues and they don’t understand. They just try to look at whatever stuff the last person of the opposing party did and just go hard on reversing shit just because.
But if by “Patriotic Education” they mean creating a system of just propping up a Chinese version of what the US does with our “exceptionalism.” And just focuses on ignoring the failures or more problematic parts of their history. Then it seems like it would be a bad shift to right-wing conservatism. Which could be used to undo the gains in building towards socialism and internationalism. In that the focus of building solidarity and brotherhood between nations as each figures out how to build socialism in their own ways based on their masses is just turned into nationalism.
But I am going with the first paragraph as the goal unless we see that the second one is what plays out. As there are already too many times that what China is trying to do is twisted by either misunderstanding or outright lies. As a person in the US I tend to get nervous when a huge push for “patriotism” being taught. So that is why I worry about the possible meaning of using those words. As it is a very imperialist headspace if done how we have done it.
I highly doubt it’s a programme to stupify the population. It would be pretty self-defeating to sink to the same low as the US in order to fend themselves off from the US I would think.
Agreed. Like I said, I just get cagey whenever “patriotism” is used in education/laws. Obviously my life as a US citizen and our constant attempts to whitewash our history is a trigger for it just meaning to lie about things. lol, a real motherfucker to get past. But it is why I did feel like expressing it here to see how others might see it. Thank you for not attacking me for putting it out there as I was worried I would just be super downvoted and misunderstood. And I mean that too, just being clear since I have been told I sometimes come across completely wrong/sarcastic in how I write things.
eh it happens but i think people here are far more interested in conversation than ego tripping and brigading so we have that going for us!
Some people are cautious of patriotism, and rightly so, because when carried out incorrectly it leads to fascism. On the other hand, patriotism is also a collectivist ideology, which is helpful in keeping liberalism out.
Whether or not patriotism hinders internationalism could be debated, but that’s something to talk about AFTER socialism is more mainstream. I think that patriotism is to internationalism as socialism is to communism.
- Before the material conditions for communism are met, socialism is the transitional phase, and the state (as an organization) led by a communist party is still required.
- Before the psychological conditions for internationalism are met, patriotism can also be a transitional phase, and the state (as a concept) led by Marxist ideology is still required.
Patriots running the country is akin to proletariats running the country, but class identity comes before national identity, so more importance should be given to class. Patriotism focuses on the psychological, while socialism focuses on the material, and “material basis determines the superstructure”, patriotism without socialism is a recipe for disaster, history has already taught us that.
(Now I’m vaguely aware of something called “patsoc”, and I hope I didn’t describe something like that.)
Note that capitalists can also be very global-minded, or rather very unpatriotic, as they actively avoid allegiance to any country to increase profits.
Oh no, patsocs /s
Just as there is a difference between proletarian and bourgeois nationalism there too, is one between imperialist and anti-imperialist patriotism. Even in capitalist periphery countries patriotism/nationalism is good, as long as it opposes outside imperialists. Where the patsocs go wrong is when they are patriotic for an imperialist and colonialist country. The nationalism we need in the so called US is black, indigenous, and Chicano nationalism. These are the nations that have the potential for socialism unlike the settler project.
