[enriquto]

> Judging by the almost physical pain I experience when listening to non-native speakers trying to express themselves in my language,

Just by curiosity, what is your mother tongue? In my case, hearing non-natives trying to speak my language fills me with a sudden outburst of joy! I just want to immediately become friends and help the person, and introduce them to my friends and family! (Maybe because it is quite rare to see foreigners learning catalan.)

[DoofusOfDeath]

> I’m German. We have a 70-years tradition, well deserved, of being embarrassed by our nationality and its outward signs.

I never understood the rationale of being proud, or embarrassed, about the actions of other persons. Guilt/pride by association just makes no sense to me; it seems like a complete non-sequitur.

Sure you're German, but neither you nor your contemporaries participated in the horrors before or during WW2.

[shaki-dora]

Nationalism is, for better or worse, part of human nature. It’d be mighty hypocritical for humanity at large if people could just pick and choose from their history.

For Germany specifically, denying responsibility for the holocaust just wouldn’t work if you also wanted to field a team at the soccer World Cup. Given that choice, even the right wing at least goes through the motions.

Two well-worn formula encapsulating the idea are “not guilt, but responsibility”, and “it happened once, therefore it can happen again”.

But the “dirty secret” of German identity is that we are living a rather good life within this cocoon of professed guilt. It’s not just about accepting history, but also (I hope) the work for peace and European integration that the country has done over the decades. But the result is that I very rarely actually experience negative consequences of my nationality. I’m far more liable to get encouraging feedback like yours. In a way, it’s the most successful humblebrag of history.

Politically, Germany had it far easier to escape the various calls to arms during the Cold War and beyond, or to keep its military smaller than official NATO agreements require. If you get really lucky, your country might even be forced to give up its fearsome currency, accidentally handing you the keys to a continent’s economy in the process.

Which is why I have no earthly idea why countries such as Turkey and Japan resist acceptance of their historical atrocities. Seriously: stop fighting it, and enjoy the adulation of a repentant sinner.

[dragonwriter]

> Nationalism is, for better or worse, part of human nature. It’d be mighty hypocritical for humanity at large if people could just pick and choose from their history.

It might be hypocritical, but nationalism not only regularly involves that, but goes beyond it to often involve picking and choosing from a combination of actual history and fictional history, and that seems to be at least as much part of human nature and nationalism itself.

[eeZah7Ux]

> Nationalism is, for better or worse, part of human nature.

Nonsense. Humans (and other mammals) are born with genetic programming to recognize faces, drink milk and cry when hungry. Nationalism is entirely a cultural artifact.

[nazgul17]

I disagree. Caring for "your" people is very much part of human nature. Where you draw the line can change (examples are blood, race, hometown, city, region, nation, continent, family etc), but "us vs them" it is an overwhelmingly common pattern.

[eeZah7Ux]

As JoeDaDude pointed out tribalism is not nationalism. Most mammals are social creatures and, unsurprisingly, tend to bond with their peers.

The idea that someone that you've never seen or met is "your" people because it has the same letters on a passport is a cultural artifact.

> "us vs them" it is an overwhelmingly common pattern

The fact that is common in various cultures does not imply that it is "human nature", but the opposite.

Prof. Sapolsky research on baboons "group culture" is a good example. There are various lectures from him on youtube.

[JoeDaDude]

I agree in principle as "nations" are a fairly recent development. Perhaps a better term would be "tribalism" as people like to belong and/or identify with a group - call it a tribe for lack of a better term.

Ideally, people would consider supra-national entities (such as the EU) as their tribe, but I wonder how far that will go. Even in a large country such as the USA, it is hard for everyone to identify as belonging to the same USA tribe, what with divisions of North-South, religion, race, etc.

[shaki-dora]

I’m German. We have a 70-years tradition, well deserved, of being embarrassed by our nationality and its outward signs.

Edit: I should add that, in my initial comment, the “raping” of women and natural resources was not meant to apply to Germany. It was more of a literary device playing on the sweeping accusation of imperialism.

[enriquto]

> I’m German. We have a 70-years tradition, well deserved, of being embarrassed by our nationality

But do you feel pain when non-natives try to speak german because they speak it incorrectly, or for some other reason?

I love german! I started learning it a few weeks ago, by reading the original Hilbert-Courant. I'll try not to slaughter your language by speaking it yet, though :)