In view of the upcoming celebrations for the 60th Anniversary of the Republic of China, I came to think about Patriotism and national values.
The intrinsic meaning of celebrating anniversaries resides specifically in its emotional and ritual significance of keeping a community together through historical memory and common beliefs.
Quite often, though, the original importance of a specific anniversary gets lost in the flow of time, and what is left is merely a common sense of affiliation to some settled ideas, such as traditional customs or religious celebrations (with the feeling that the more these celebrations lose track with their original significance, the more they become a simple excuse to have some extra holidays!).
But despite this loss in meaning, they still keep their original sense of keeping the community together and in this way they are still to be considered an important occasion of mass aggregation and power.
RMB City saint patron
What I’m wondering now is whether or not on-line communities undergo this same patriotic and national processes so typical in any RL societies.
I am still very doubtful about this subject, but I have the feeling that the crucial elements inspiring patriotic and national values are completely lacking in the virtual space (thankfully or not): the sense of affiliation to a common lineage, tribe, nation, state, religion, customs and traditions doesn’t belong to the vast, multi-cultural, intra-national and heterogeneous ocean of the net.
On-line communities and virtual worlds belong more to the ‘non-space’ of infinite possibilities, to that UTOPIA of chances and exchanges that doesn’t define any specific Nation and community.
But if we wanted to take it less seriously, we could initiate a SL anniversary on June 23 (this year would have been the 6th one) and celebrate our almighty ‘Linden Lab’ God in the form of His embodied son Philip Rosedale.
Proposals for the national anthem and flag are warmly welcomed!
