Can’t help but notice the difference in sentiment between the flag that represents a people and a flag that represents a nation, especially historically.
Hmm? Which is which? Is this one of those British things people from normal countries don't understand? Like the difference between United Kingdom and Great Britain.
Perhaps I should have used the term “sovereign state”, as that’s more precise, even though when most people use the colloquial term “nation” (as in “nationalism”) they’re referring to a sovereign state.
A sovereign state has borders they can enforce to their own discretion (political gridlock notwithstanding), a stable and well-defined (non-transient) population, a single recognized government (both internally and externally), and ability to conduct foreign relations without being stopped by force or decree.
So, with that more precise definition out of the way, you can recognize that the flags in your links do not represent sovereign states, but rather peoples - who, coincidentally, are often fighting for their rights and freedoms.
Elsewhere in the thread are mentions of nation flags, like the Union Jack, which represent a sovereign state, and are instead often associated with national identity, xenophobia and oppression.
There's not a lot of difference there. Citizenship COULD be used, but now you're talking about two different domains of language. A person who is British but now has an American citizenship, still talks with a British accent and identifies as British is still British. The same way a trans person with XY is still a woman if she identifies as a women, even though that person is also a male in another domain of speech.
Humans who identify as "humans, not animals" are just stupid and wrong in the scientific domain of speech, but absolutely correct and reasonable in the colloquial domain of speech.
I’m not following your argument at all, could you try to word it differently?
The distinction I’m drawing is that flags that represent peoples are usually more ideologically pure: people seeking justice or rights. They may be co-opted over time by more actors who deviate from the original intention (e.g. Gadsden Flag).
Nation flags, on the other hand, are by definition exclusionary towards an outgroup that exists by legal distinction. In the historical record, nationalism rarely works out well for anyone who sits outside the definition of a nation. Nationalism is a useful tool during wartime, especially during the early years of a nation (e.g. colonial revolutions) or when facing an existential threat (e.g. Ukraine), but it’s an ideological debt that may end up being paid by future generations when someone comes along and wraps themselves and their ideology in the flag and paints their opposition as “unamerican”, for example.
Is your point that all flags have the same ideological utility no matter what they represent? Or is your point not talking about flags at all and instead focusing on the difference between “sovereign state” and “nation”?
> Nation flags, on the other hand, are by definition exclusionary towards an outgroup that exists by legal distinction
I did notice how extremely specific that was. Because the current LGBTQ+ grouping have been quite exclusionary towards even LGB for quite some time now. Your point that they can be coopted is something I absolutely agree with.
> In the historical record, nationalism rarely works out well for anyone who sits outside the definition of a nation.
"What did the Romans ever do for us?". Pax Americana has been ENORMOUSLY beneficial for billions of people starting in 1943 arguably. And obviously the Roman Empire was followed by the Dark Ages. You're cherry picking.
> Is your point that all flags have the same ideological utility no matter what they represent?
I think my original point when posting that there's a lot of flag waving on the left, is that... well.. the post before that claimed there isn't which is just wrong. Now I would say that my point is that ALL movements/nations/corporations/whatever are co-optable. There's absolutely no difference between nations or movements.
It's not a left vs right thing. It never was. People who say it are are historically ignorant, naive, willfully ignorant, or a combination of those. "Right" and "left" are pretty much meaningless anyway. We have to look at individual movements, people, policies, and actions individually without falling back to our own group identity to judge the moral character of the thing.
I've seen people claim that since "the left" were right about women's rights, then it must be ok whatever "the left" is doing now because historically "the left" is always on the right side of history. Just ignoring the 100+ million dead from communism.
