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It's Gross And Cringey To Love A State Like Israel Or The USA (www.caitlinjohnst.one)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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People who love and defend a government are creating parental figures out of the state instead of growing up and taking their stand as mature individuals.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

On the one hand she argues that it's not true that she loves Russia, in fact one can't even have emotions like love towards a country:

It’s impossible to have a real personal emotional relationship with any nation ... You’re not loving the actual country, you’re loving a small mental representation of it that you have constructed inside your head.

On the other hand, her entire blog is aimed at provoking emotional reactions against the US, which she admits she hates:

I hate what they love so they assume I must love what they hate.

Are countries simply mental representations or are they valid objects of repulsion and hatred? It depends on the country, comrade! Russia exists only in your mind, so your feelings about Russia are invalid. But the US is an actual twisted abomination!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's no contradiction or double standard here.

Love and hate are usually understood to include support/oppose in their meaning. It's cringey to say you "love" any nation, because they will never care for your wellbeing. It's especially unacceptable to support violent imperial states.

That doesn't preclude opposing or hating certain states, or having indifference to states that you don't feel strongly impacted by.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's cringey to say you "love" any nation, because they will never care for your wellbeing

That's not really her argument, which is that you cannot have any emotional relationship with a country.

But even your version is flawed. She lives in Australia and hates what happens to Gazans but is not impacted by what happens to Ukrainians and Uyghurs?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I think the title, opening sentence and paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 & 8 all show that she's talking mostly about love in the sense of support and identify with.

Only paragraph 4 talks about the impossiblity of a personal connection with a nation and the next paragraph makes it clear that it's a side point.

It's an imprecise and out-of-place side point that I don't agree with, but it's not proof of her secret support of authoritarianism.