Each person in the world has a place of origin, which in many cases comes to love for all the experiences they live in it, and also for a set of links that are created with the culture and history of that region. It is a place that has become his home and that is why he defends in order to preserve it and take care of it from dangers that could damage it. In this article we will let you know What is patriotism definition?

The interesting thing about patriotism is that not everyone comes to feel it for their own place of origin, everything will depend on whether the experiences lived have been pleasant or not; sometimes it is a second country instead of the native one.

What is patriotism?

Patriotism is called a thought of an individual which is linked to his homeland. This is a feeling that a person has for their homeland or the land in which they grew up and is bound by values, culture, history, and affection . Arguably, this equates to the pride an individual feels in belonging to a family or a nation . When there is an excess of defense of a homeland, it is known as chauvinism; although on the other hand some terms that are related are: jingoist and jingoist.

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If you talk about the origins of patriotism, it was born under the first American colonies after the European invasions, the time of the discovery of America . In those times, a feeling of rebellion was instilled with which they manifested a strong discontent towards the Europeans, since they made the natives feel that they were stealing the homeland in which they were born and from there the wars of independence began to exist in different nations. .

Characteristics of patriotism

• Great sentimental and economic value attributed to objects that are part of history.
• Exalted heroes and liberators , to the point of speaking of them as if they were the best in the world.
• They tend to fall into racist attacks with their movements against non-patriotic societies.

Importance of patriotism in a nation

While it is true that patriotism has always received numerous criticisms, it is totally indisputable that it also greatly favors any nation, since it is thanks to this sentiment that its history is highly valued , and if you talk about the economy It also favors national production since, for example, they will prefer to purchase nationally produced products instead of any imported product.

Criticisms of patriotism

The main criticism of patriotism is that it greatly encourages xenophobia . And this happens because there is a feeling of fear on the part of the patriots, because allowing cultural exchanges with other societies indicates a mixture which would cause the original bases of the homeland they defend to be lost.

Nationalism and patriotism

Before comparing both concepts it is important to define what nationalism is. This is an ideology or also called sociopolitical movement that starts from the concept of nation. It is a doctrine or way of thinking in which the nation is considered above anything else, thus giving value to any element that contains it, such as customs, language, culture, among others.

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The idea on which nationalism is based is that each nation has every right to form a state in order to achieve the well-being of the society that lives there . In addition, this ideology is based on the feeling of community that exists in a nation, that is to say that what it seeks is to strengthen and promote what they call a sense of belonging that each citizen has with his nation.

One of the most obvious differences between patriotism and nationalism is that in nationalism citizens are a little more objective and rational about how they see the nation, this means that they are not blind to their culture and for this reason they accept that the The nation to which they belong is beautiful and good, but like any other nation, they recognize that it is probably not perfect and that it has advantages and disadvantages, in addition to the fact that nationalism does accept cultural exchanges .