Excessive patriotism in every country that puts people around the world in danger and misery.

   There are two types of people: those who try to assess the facts and make as objective a judgment as possible, and those who will only accept as fact what they want to believe and will never accept as fake news what they do not want to believe.

　When Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine, many patriotic Russians refused to believe the news that Putin was unjustly invading and committing atrocities. They believed they were all fake news. And, on the contrary, they were willing to believe as the only truth the news that Putin was actually fighting a righteous battle to overthrow the neo-Nazi Zelensky regime, which was a complete and utter lie.

　Most Russians listen to both news on the internet as well as on the state broadcaster, but they believe that the news that portrays Russia in a bad light is fake news. On the contrary, they only want to believe the news from the state broadcaster, which reports the complete lie that Russia is fighting for justice.

In other words, for many patriotic Russians, truth, and facts were not important, and they wanted to trust only information that matched their belief that the Russia they loved would never do anything wrong, would never falsely invade another country or torture and massacre its citizens. And they stubbornly refused to accept news reporting Russia's atrocities as malicious fake news designed to discredit Russia. By keeping themselves in the fictional world of the lie-ridden state broadcasters, they tried to turn a blind eye to the horrific reality that many Ukrainians were suffering from the hell of the Russian military offensive.

　People who value objective facts, no matter how cruel and unacceptable that reality is, will honestly face that harsh reality and sincerely try to think about what they can do about it. Of course, there were many such sincere people in Russia, and some of them started demonstrations, but they were thoroughly suppressed.

When I see so many patriotic Russians who turn away from the truth, who believe only false news on state television, and who, instead of opposing the unjust war of aggression, are on the contrary trying to put pressure on the Putin regime to attack Ukraine by more radical means, I see how stupid, thoughtless and single-minded they are and how they have lost their sense of decent humanity.

However, it seems that there are actually people all over the world who, like the patriotic Russians who are now the target of ridicule from all over the world, do not accept the reality they do not want to believe as fake news, but only accept as true the information they want to believe.

Instead of facing inconvenient reality with sincerity, they rely only on the information they want to believe, even if it is a lie, and try to construct an imaginary world around them, riddled with lies, and believe that it is real.

Even in a superpower that was supposed to represent democracy, freedom, and fairness, there were barbaric people who clearly lost the election but refused to accept the fact that they did not want to believe it, believed the totally baseless falsehood that the election was rigged, and tried to convince many people that it was true by spreading it around, and even tried to occupy the parliament by force.

Also, even in a country that is highly regarded around the world for having the safest, kindest, most honest, and hardworking people in the world, some deny that the supposed mistakes their country made in the past are either made up or exaggerated by people trying to discredit their own country. On the contrary, they denounce those who sincerely confront their country's past mistakes as traitors who have been brainwashed by the enemy and are trying to make people lose their patriotic sentiments by spreading a self-flagellating view of history. This attitude seems to be exactly the same as that of the patriotic Russians of today. Like those patriotic Russians, they are overly concerned with the superiority and prestige of their country, and they are not willing to face any inconvenient reality that might undermine it. These people continue to have a great deal of influence in the ruling party.

They are especially heavy-handed toward their neighbors, believing that a conciliatory attitude will only embolden them and that only a firm, hardline attitude will protect their prestige and national interests.

Unfortunately, however, there are many people in the countries they consider their enemies who are just as patriotic and overly preoccupied with their own superiority and prestige as they are, and who are extremely overbearing toward their neighbors, believing that a conciliatory attitude only serves to aggrandize them and that only a firm, hardline attitude will protect national prestige and national interests, and such people have a major influence on their foreign policy.

If these hardliners come to power in their respective countries, their wariness and suspicion of each other will snowball, and they may well end up in a situation where they have no choice but to settle their differences through military conflict.

Fortunately, in reality, the relationship between the two countries is not in such a state of flux because the people in power are more pragmatic, moderate, and conciliatory than such excessively patriotic people.

However, there are a certain number of overly patriotic people in every country, and they exert a great deal of influence on the government of the day, so it is quite possible that, depending on the timing and trends in world affairs, the power in each country could be held by such overly patriotic people.

If this were to happen, the mutual bluffing would become infinitely more extreme, and eventually, there would be no choice but to settle the matter by all-out war.

Thus, people like those patriotic and foolish Russians, nationalistic, overly patriotic, exclusive, never admitting inconvenient truths, and obsessed with national prestige, are now beginning to emerge in countries all over the world. They are the ones who believe that immigrants from other ethnic groups are only a detriment to their own national interests and should be excluded and that neighboring countries are potential enemies who will take advantage of them if they show any signs of weakness.

It is frightening to imagine what kind of future awaits such dangerous people if they come to power in their respective countries.

The biggest problem with such people is that they think that if they take a firm and strong stand, the other side will flinch. In reality, however, the more resolute and stronger we are, the more the other side will not only flinch but will even take a more aggressive stance, putting their own prestige on the line. In this way, the two sides end up in an endless battle of wiles, which eventually leads to a military conflict.

This is how the foolish conflicts in history have been repeated.

In any country, the group that advocates a more hardline foreign opinion is invariably the louder, and the peaceful and conciliatory opinion is thoroughly criticized as "cowardly diplomacy" that only benefits the other country and is detrimental to the national interest. 

It is the same structure that allows fundamentalists to gain power among Muslims, because "a conciliatory stance only benefits the opponents, and the only way to defend Islamic doctrine is to take hardline measures", so fundamentalists everywhere end up with a strong influence.

Thus, the view shared by hardliners around the world is that "a peaceful and conciliatory stance is the idea of naïve simpletons caught up in an unrealistic utopian ideology, and in reality, it is an irresponsible policy that only benefits the enemy and harms the national interest.

In many countries, such hardliners are in power because they believe that "taking a firm, hardline stance is the responsible attitude to protect national prestige and national interests.

What would happen if such hardliners came to be in power in every country in the world?

In fact, "taking a firm and hardline stance" is not a recent trend, but rather a commonplace attitude of nations that have existed since ancient times.

As the scale of the conflict grew larger and larger, and after World War I and World War II, people began to reflect on the fact that if the old, hardline view of the nation remained unchanged, conflicts would continue and eventually the human race would be destroyed. This led to a rethinking of the nationalistic, exclusive, and hardline view of the nation that had existed until then, and to the advocacy of the idea of a community that aimed for the coexistence and co-prosperity of nations and a more relaxed framework of nations themselves.

The EU is the embodiment of this concept. Thanks to the birth of the EU, the countries of Europe, which used to be in constant conflict, are now on the path of coexistence and co-prosperity.

Unfortunately, conflicts between the EU and other countries have become an issue, but ultimately, I believe that conflicts and wars will only be eliminated when the entire world becomes one community.

In other words, the "resolute and hardline" view of the nation is the primitive and barbaric view of the nation that has existed since ancient times, and the "peaceful and harmonious attitude" is an approach based on mutual trust in humanity that has emerged only in recent years, and is based on a very rational and intellectual approach to mutual coexistence and co-prosperity. It is not an unrealistic utopian idea, but an idea that emerged in the process of progressing from animalistic and barbaric humanity, which was selfish and only concerned with its own survival, to a more intelligent humanity that considers the path to mutual coexistence and co-prosperity.

In other words, the difference between supporting a hardline stance and a conciliatory one is between supporting a more selfish, barbaric, and animalistic view of the state and a more advanced view of coexistence and co-prosperity.

Having experienced the past two world wars in which so many people were sacrificed, mankind realized anew its own savagery and felt a strong sense of danger that unless the savagery was overcome, mankind would eventually be destroyed by the clash of mutual hardline attitudes, and this led to the search for a way to the coexistence and co-prosperity of all nations based on mutual trust in humanity.

In recent years, however, such a conciliatory stance has been criticized by hardliners in many countries as a naïve simpletons’ unrealistic utopian ideology, and humanity is once again reverting to a selfish, animalistic, and barbaric hardline view of the state.

Even on the internet, barbaric opinions dominate, as if a hardline stance is a right argument, but, after all, can humanity never escape from its selfish, barbaric animal state and become wise enough to aim for mutual co-existence and co-prosperity?