I grew up in Italy, where patriotism is not overtly expressed. The only time you will see lots of Italian flags waving about is when Italy wins the World
Soccer Cup. And perhaps on a few other occasions.
The opposite is true here in the U.S. There are flags everywhere. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, eh, please don’t get me wrong. It’s just different, that’s all.
But…a flag stuck on top of a…beach umbrella?
I think in Europe generally you see fewer flags flown because we have grown up with the idea that patriotism is the same as nationalism. Two World Wars in half a century led people to believe that “flying the flag” was bad news.
Things are different now. I don’t know what it is like in Italy but we probably see as many foreign flags flying here as Union Jacks. This is the result of successive British governments preaching “multi-culturalism” for the last 60 years. The danger is that this can lead to a divided society not a cohesive one.
Personally, I think the US has got it right. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your culture and your country and showing it by flying the flag. I think that this is why the US, a country built from immigrants, has a stronger culture than the UK.
However, it is important to remember that politicians will often try to highjack a strong patriotic culture for nationalistic purposes. That is when the World gets dangerous.
When I had my port put in, the nurse told me (I don’t remember how we got on the subject) that houses in the US that fly flags are 40% less likely to be broken into, probably because crooks think the flag-flyers are conservatives, and more likely to have guns…and more likely to use them.
I think they guess correctly.