56 Patriotism

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 56 of the Listening Time podcast.

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So, today, we’re going to talk about patriotism. This is an interesting topic, so I’m excited to discuss it with you. Remember that you have the transcript available for this episode below this episode in the Episode Description. You’ll see the link there, and you’ll also see the link to become a Listening Time Member: that’s patreon.com/listeningtime So, you’ll find that in the Episode Description under this episode. Alright, let’s get started.

Okay, so let’s talk about patriotism. First of all, let’s define this word. What is patriotism? Well, this is a feeling of pride and love for your country. Okay? So, patriotism is when you feel proud of your country and you love your country. So, a lot of people are patriotic around the world, and we can see this in different situations. For example, around the world, we have events where countries compete with each other… for example, the Olympics and the World Cup, events like that. And during these events, you can see a lot of people from different countries really supporting and cheering their country on. In English, when we say to “cheer someone on”, this means that you support them and you hope that they win something, and you show them that you are behind them. You’re supporting them. You’re cheering them on.

So, people cheer on their countries, and they’re super proud when their country wins the gold medal or they win an important soccer match or something like that. People get very excited, and they show that they really support their country, and they’re happy that their country is doing well. So, in these types of events, you see some people acting in a patriotic way to show that they’re proud of their country and they love their country.

And you can also see patriotism during national holidays like Independence Days. I think that in most countries, there’s some national holiday that happens every year where people celebrate their own country. For example, if your country used to be a colony of another country, and then it got its independence, then there’s probably an Independence Day in your country. A “colony” is a land or a territory that another country or kingdom claims as their own, and then later on, it becomes free when the people have a revolution or the country decides to give the people their own freedom to have their own country. So, this is a colony. So, if your country was colonized and then became independent became independent, you probably have an Independence Day. Or if not, you probably have some other national holiday. And during this day, you see people waving their country’s flag, or there are parades that celebrate the country. So, you can usually see some patriotism during these holidays.

So, I want to talk about patriotism in the US, because patriotism in the US is different from patriotism in other countries. And I’ll talk a little bit about why that is. So, first of all, patriotism in the US is more intense, okay? It’s more extreme. People feel a very deep emotional love for their country. Obviously, not everybody… but many Americans feel this. So, for example, when I talk to students of mine in different countries, they usually say that they like their country, and they’re proud of being someone from that country, but they often want to leave and move somewhere else because they don’t think that their country is the best place to live or they’re not really excited about their country.

Even though they say that they like it and they’re proud of it, they don’t really show this that much. They know that it’s good to say this, but a lot of them also want to move to the US or Canada or some other country, and they don’t feel the same intense passion for their country. For example, in the US, most people would never think of living in another country. Most people would never even imagine moving away permanently and living somewhere else. People can’t even imagine doing this. Okay? So, that’s one thing that I’ve noticed.

And another thing is that patriotism in the US involves more emotion. Okay? People get very emotional in the US when talking about their country on Independence Day or during events like that. People feel a very intense passion for this. Usually, in other countries, you see most of people’s passion during soccer matches or the Olympics or things like that, where people show that they’re very proud of their country.

But when I think of patriotism in the US, I don’t think of these kinds of events, like sports matches. I just think of the overwhelming emotion that people feel towards their country, and they feel that they live in the greatest country on Earth, and it’s a very passionate feeling. When I say the word “overwhelming”, I’m saying that something is at a very high level. It’s almost too much. Right? So, if I say “The amount of work I have is overwhelming”, it means that I feel like I have so much work that I might not be able to handle all of it.

So, some Americans feel an overwhelming passion for their country. They feel a really intense feeling of pride and love for the US. So, this just isn’t something I see as much in other countries. And I live in Mexico right now, so I can compare the two countries, and it doesn’t really compare. Patriotism in the US is much much stronger than patriotism in Mexico, in my opinion.

So, another thing that shows this is the use of flags. So, in most countries, you don’t see the country’s flag in most places. It’s not common to see the flag whenever you go outside or go to different places. Here in Mexico, I rarely see the Mexican flag. However, in the US, you see the American flag everywhere. It’s really common for people to hang this flag in their front yard. In English, the term “front yard” refers to the space in front of your house where your driveway is, where you put your car, and the grass that you have in front of your house… this is called the front yard.

So, it’s really common in the US for people to hang the American flag in their front yard. So, if you drive around different neighborhoods, you’re bound to see a lot of American flags waving around. In English, when we say that you’re “bound to” do something, it means that you’re probably going to do something. It’s very likely that you’re going to do something. So, if you’re bound to see these flags, I’m saying that it’s almost 100% certain that you’re going to see these flags if you drive around different neighborhoods. You’re probably going to see them.

And another time when you can see this intense patriotism in the US is on the Fourth of July. So, this is our Independence Day. We usually just refer to it as the Fourth of July. And this is different from other Independence other Independence Days. For example, when I think of Independence Day in Mexico, it’s very different from Independence Day in the US. In the US, this is a really big holiday. This is a very important day. And you see the flag everywhere. You see people doing all kinds of things to show their love for the US. They sometimes even paint their face with the American flag, and you really feel the energy of a country that is unified, even though in reality, it’s not really unified. In English, when we say the word “unified”, we mean that people are united together. They support the same cause or the same goal.

So, obviously, in the US, people aren’t that unified nowadays. People disagree with each other on a lot of issues, and they might even hate each other because of their differences and disagreements. However, on the Fourth of July, you can really feel this unity of a lot of people supporting the country and showing their love for the US, and it’s a very important day, like I mentioned.

And another reason why I think patriotism is so strong in the US is because of the history of the country. So, the way that the US gained its independence was pretty unique in that the Founding Fathers of the US really paved the way for other countries to also claim some of these same values and rights that they were claiming at that time. So, we have the famous document, the Declaration of Independence. This document is one of the most important documents in history. It really changed a lot when it was written and signed. And today, many people still look to the Declaration of Independence to see what values are important and how their country and their government should act and how people should think about themselves and their freedom.

This document was really important, and a lot of people are very proud of the way that the US declared its independence and fought for its freedom and helped pave the way for other countries to do something similar. In English, when we use the term “pave the way” for something, we’re saying that someone does some action for the first time that other people can follow and do something similar. So, the US paved the way for other people in other countries to claim the same freedom and the same rights that the Founding Fathers claimed in the US. By the way, the term “Founding Fathers” just refers to the people that really helped start the country of the United States of America, right? People like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. These were the Founding Fathers.

Okay, now, let me just mention a different type of patriotism that I see with different people in countries outside of the US in different areas of the world. This patriotism is kind of like a pride of an area or a region bigger than just one country. So, for example, last year, I was watching a Mexican broadcast of the Olympics. It was on Mexican TV. And it was interesting because the Mexican commentators were supporting the other people from Latin America that weren’t from Mexico. For example, if there was someone from the Dominican Republic or from Colombia competing, they would also show that they were supporting this person, and they showed that they were proud of that person because they’re all from Latin America.

I thought that this was interesting because people from Mexico are not exactly the same as people from Colombia, but during an event like the Olympics, a lot of Mexicans were supporting other people, like, from Colombia or other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. And I know that this is something that happens in other regions of the world where people might support an athlete from a country nearby because they share the same language or the same culture or something like that. And I know that a lot of people in Europe… they like to call themselves “Europeans” before they call themselves by their nationality. So, I’ve had European students that always talk about how they’re European, and not Italian, or German, or whatever.

And I thought this was also interesting, too, because this isn’t something that you find very often in the US. In the US, people don’t usually feel pride when talking about North America, right? They don’t feel that they’re proud of the continent in general. They just feel proud of being an American, specifically… from the US. So, for example, if people watch the Olympics in the US, and there’s an athlete from Canada, people in the US probably don’t care that much about if the Canadian wins or loses, because we don’t necessarily support everyone from our continent. So, this is just my opinion, but I think that this is a difference that I’ve seen in the US and people from other countries: is in some countries, people feel more unified with people from other countries in their region, whereas in the US, we kind of just focus on the US. So, that’s something that’s a little bit different.

Lastly, let’s just talk quickly about the military. In the US, patriotism is often linked to a support for the military. So, we have this phrase in the US where we say “support our troops”. Okay? So, if you support the troops, it means that you support the military because “troops” just refers to soldiers in some military. So, patriotism in the US is often linked to a support for US troops, for the US military. And this is something that I think is a little bit different in many other countries.

So, in many countries, if you say that you’re patriotic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you support the military, right? You probably don’t even think of that when you say that you’re patriotic. Whereas in the US, for a lot of people, when they talk about patriotism, they also connect this to supporting the US military. And in the US, military members are highly respected by most people. So, it’s common, for example, to see someone pay for the military person’s drink in a Starbucks or something like that, right? People want to show their respect for people in the military and to show their appreciation for them.

So, this is something that’s also linked to patriotism in the US. If you don’t support the military, maybe, that passionately, people might think that you’re not patriotic. So, this isn’t what everyone thinks, but a lot of people feel like this. They link these two things together. And that’s not something that you see as much in other countries.

Alright, why don’t we stop there for today? Remember that if you need help with your listening and you want to reach an advanced level of listening comprehension, become a Listening Time Member. Just click on the link in the Episode Description below this episode: patreon.com/listeningtime and you’ll receive my specialized training. And make sure to become a Listening Time Family Member if you want my advanced podcast episodes, so that you can become an advanced listener. Remember that you have the transcript available for this episode in the Episode Description as well. And remember to come back next week, because I’m recording episodes every week now. So, thank you for listening to this episode, and I’ll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.