I am a man who likes many things, but those things don’t remotely come close in number to those that I dislike. The things I dislike aren’t things that simply bother me. They aren’t wishy-washy feelings about the innumerable things that a person can have opinions of in the world. When I dislike something, I dislike it with passion. I have a litany of reasons why that thing should never exist and why it is an abomination of God. I think in many ways I define myself much more by these things that are disagreeable to me as by those that I enjoy or approve of. This has never really gone well with people, but I feel as though defining myself negatively gives me a sense of freedom, and so if people don’t like it they can go suck-a-dick.
Anyway, one of my first real “dislikes” was patriotism/nationalism. I moved to Weston when I was about 10, so I managed to develop a healthy distaste for the loud, ignorant, drenched-in-my-country’s-colors-even-though-last-year-I-couldn’t-draw-the-flag Colombians and Venezuelans. Venezuelans are especially guilty of this thanks to the whole Chavez fiasco. I hated the idea of having this fixed identity, especially one that I associated with these people who I thought were stupid. As I’ve gotten older I’ve loosened and refined this feeling a lot more, but I still dislike patriotism very strongly, for my own reasons.
This day I will go through my first 4th of July as a legal citizen of the United States. My family’s not going out, because it’s never been much of a holiday for us. I’ve been reflecting on what this now means for me and for how I feel about this country. To be perfectly honest It’s incredibly fun to hate on the United States. It’s a country associated with ignorance (especially amongst the Left) and not “cool” like those European countries. It also has a brutal history of racism and imperialism that not many can defend. But now I’m a citizen of this country. Some of you might think it my duty to love and defend this country. I think my citizenship is a completely irrelevant question for various reasons, but it does make me think about the fact that I will likely have children and die in this country. I can’t quite muster patriotism, but I have grown to appreciate what Americans can be and what a unique culture we live in. It was in this culture that rock music was born, Dylan, and a slew of great thinkers that I admire and appreciate.
This isn’t simply reflection, but an idea of how I want to be American and behave in a manner that reflects it. I will not be apathetic about American politics, as so many of you American-borns are, but I will engage myself and be a critical, active citizen. I have my own ideal of what being an American can be, and those are the standards I will live by.
