National Pride

Why do some people feel intensely threatened by the realities of history and instead seek comfort in, and venerate intensely, a sanitised, mythologised, folklore version, while simultaneously attacking those who feel no such threat? Why is it they are generally to the right, if not the far right? 

I can only interpret it as being so bound up in their national identity that they assume personal responsibility for historic acts over which they had no control and could never have conceivably been involved in anyway, like a halo effect, and that view has be be seen through the distorting prism of perfection in order to absolve themselves of, and delete the painful reminders of, the nastier episodes of the history to which they feel personally connected. 

A pertinent analogy is lying on one's cv. The cv is the collective, national history and one cannot tarnish it with questionable activities when it's both a mirror and descriptive of how you want others to see you. Nefarious activity has to be deleted from the record and those who shine a light on it are to be attacked mercilessly. Out damned spot! 

It's corollary is people saying; "We defeated the Nazis," when they played no part whatsoever in that struggle and fail to recognise that the defeat of the Nazis was a collaborative effort on the part of many nations acting in concert. It's the collective and yet personalised 'we' of the national soul or Volk. 

The history sanitiser defines him or herself by an accident of birth, rather than a shared participation in humanity; it's a version of the French concept of laïcité, where everything that identifies a person is demanded to be subservient to a shared motion of French citizenship. It's a deep and somewhat ugly nationalism and a precursor to Nazism itself. It's no wonder that France is a nation greatly threatened by the aggressive nationalism of the Front National. 

Placing national pride above truth is a dangerous path.