Antinomy of meanings: patriotism vs cosmopolitanism
The concepts «patriotism» and «cosmopolitanism», in spite of a long history of their opposition, are coherent in the sense: the differences are only in degree of their generality. The similarity of the content -the loving careful attitude for the land is concealed by the shape of the mismatch, namely in the degree of localization; for a patriot it is a village, area, country, for a cosmopolitan it is a continent, parts of the world, earthly ecumene. In the era of globalization and world division of labour, import substitution policy and political isolationism is ideologically incorrect and unviable for civilization. Even key concepts such as «national identity» or «homeland», become blurred and uncertain. If one is born in the family of the French in Germany, studied in Russia and England, lives in Australia, works in the branch of the American University, which country patriot he should be? The values of democracy and liberal culture are common to the whole mankind, and all attempts to «nationalize» them are philosophically untenable. Very often, patriotism is «a way of explaining power to the people, why they live worse than others».