The Right's Nationalistic Ignorance

I sometimes struggle to understand how the right thinks because it is so different from how I or my friends think. I try to hold a worldcentric view, though not a relativist one. So when I read something like the following from the right-wing Big Hollywood blog, it boggles my mind.

This kind of anti-progress, ethnocentric nationalism is a big part of the conservative worldview. To me, it strikes me as ostrich-like, head buried in the sand. Anyone who disagrees with their view is anti-American

With the advent of World War I, we became a global community, for good or ill. At this point in time, we are much more interdependent than the author of this post can grasp. We can't undo that anymore than we can turn back time.

Our Exceptionalism Comes From Our Constitution

by Doug TenNapel

I’m not a big Global Citizen. I’m not proud of how the world conducts itself, it has a terrible history and there’s nothing great about humanity other than we have a great Creator. Mankind’s achievement is only consistent in how spotty it is. Intelligence has only made us immoral with more knowledge. Technology has brought us ways to destroy more lives and project more misery with less effort and more efficiency.

Individual countries pale compared to America. So contrast my relative shame as a global citizen with my pride, excitement and honor of being a member of the United States of America. Our country is the best. I’d say that we’re not perfect, but I hate opening any kind of door for the America haters to drive their Prius through. We have good standards, fund charities around the world and have left more of our bodies in the graveyards of other countries to defend and expand liberty than any other country in the history of the world. Our economy is the singularity of the Big Bang from which prosperity flows to the rest of the world.

So it pains me to watch my President stand among the G20 leaders as he works hard to fit in with a bunch of really stupid countries. I admit it, I’m a jealous citizen and I don’t like to share the attention and will of my president with the rest of the world. He’s mine, not theirs. The world may think they elected President Obama, and perhaps even Obama may think that, but I don’t have a vote in the Global Community. I don’t get to participate in how China must conduct herself so I’d rather my president not give away our power, treasure and values to fit in with a global consensus of lesser countries than our own.

The post goes to explain why Constitution makes us the best country on Earth.

This kind of thinking in the 21st Century really seems regressive in so many ways. Makes me happy to think that the Millennials are much more likely to hold a worldcentric view.

Tags: culture, Spiral Dynamics, Politics, nationalism, Big Hollywood, Doug TenNapel, ethnocentrism, American Exceptionalism, Global Citizen, worldcentric