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Full Idea
We must not have any other love than charity. A nation cannot be an object of charity. But a country can be one - as an environment bearing traditions which are eternal. Every country can be that.
Gist of Idea
Charity is the only love, and you can feel that for a country (a place with traditions), but not a nation
Source
Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beast')
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'Gravity and Grace', ed/tr. Crawford/De Ruhr [Routledge 1952], p.169
A Reaction
This definitely strikes a chord with me. I am English and British to the core, but don't feel any love at all for the current central institutions of the state. But I love my island, and its history, and its culture, and its style.
23273 | In a good state the goal of the citizens and of the whole state are united [Hegel] |
23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
23810 | Charity is the only love, and you can feel that for a country (a place with traditions), but not a nation [Weil] |
23828 | National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil] |
22816 | Socialists reject nationality as a false source of identity [Miller,D] |
21123 | Liberal Nationalism is more communitarian, and Constitutional Patriotism more cosmopolitan [Shorten] |
23535 | Western workers turn to nationalism, to avert the effects of globalisation [Berardi] |
23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
22592 | Nationalism pretends that we can only have a single identity [Dunt] |