quality:correction, structural:summarization, structural:scholar_edition
Opposition

Voltaire stated that "It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind." Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that "The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which a person can be proud."

Kōtoku Shūsui, a famous Japanese anarchist of the late 19th/early 20th century, devoted a large section of his widely read Imperialism, Monster of the Twentieth Century to a condemnation of patriotism. One of the many arguments is based on the Confucian value of empathy: "I am as convinced as Mencius that any man would rush without hesitation to rescue a child who was about to fall into a well... A human being moved by such selfless love and charity does not pause to think whether the child is a family member or a close relative. When he rescues the child from danger, he does not even ask himself whether the child is his own or belongs to another." Patriotism is used to dehumanize others whom we would naturally have empathy for. He argues, "atriotism is a discriminating and arbitrary sentiment confined to those who belong to a single nation-state or live together within common national borders", a sentiment cultivated and used by militarists in their drive for war.

Marxists have taken various stances regarding patriotism. On one hand, Karl Marx famously stated that "The working men have no country" and that "the supremacy of the proletariat will cause to vanish still faster." The same view is promoted by present-day Trotskyists such as Alan Woods, who is "in favor of tearing down all frontiers and creating a socialist world commonwealth." On the other hand, Marxist-Leninists and Maoists are usually in favor of socialist patriotism based on the theory of socialism in one country.

Against primordial arguments in favour of national patriotism, Eric Hobsbawm wrote that such a concept was - for most of human history - "so remote from the real experience of most human beings".

Anarchists oppose patriotism. This was exemplified by Emma Goldman, who stated:

Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, and more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living in that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in an attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.