Family and State

In a sense, an individual's perception of his nation is the same as his perception on his family. It's often difficult to compare a family member to other non-relatives. Although it is sometimes possible to form a criteria and somehow judge another person to be "better" than your relative, a certain bond will seem to compell you to choose your relatives over that person. In a sense, you would rather have a family member no matter how degenerate or of low character he may be simply because he is yours. Likewise, no matter how politically corrupt, economically recessive, or culturally backward one's country may be, an individual would tend to be loyal to his nation simply because it is his.

Call it nationalism...call it patriotism...I call it whatever...