Hehe, I watched most of your videos on fixing the M-39, but I didn't comment since I'm not an expert on firearms. Unluckily, I happened to miss the part about pine needles - that would've been a thing to comment on, just to say that I like the gesture of keeping the needles =) Yeah when we were kids, me and my brothers, we didn't play winter war, but we spent couple of summers building kotas and shelters, crafting bows, spears and fishing rods, and once we tried to spend two days of self-sufficient life in our camp-site. Seems like some of that attitude has carried into my adulthood =)

A further reflection on my story about 'us vs them' tensions in Finland - I know the story would be a lot different if written by a Swedish-speaking Finn. Or by a member of Sápmi people. My own point of view is heavily based on the Eastern / Central Finland experience, and I know very little of how life actually is in the Swedish speaking western coast. But what little I know, for the most part people get along pretty well, no matter which language they speak. The troublemakers are often just a tiny minority - but then that is enough, if walking down the street you feel that one in twenty of the passer-bys is ready to punch your nose simply because you speak the wrong language, then that makes an atmosphere of violent tensions, even though one in twenty is a small minority of thugs. But, yeah, these are mostly my general guesses based on what I've seen and heard, I never discussed these things in detail with anyone from the Swedish-speaking area.

Oh well. I think your observation on "nationalism" and "patriotism" is very clever. I mean, to me it seems that a lot of difficulties arise from people using same words for different things, and then not noticing it. All too often when people argue about something, they actually are speaking of two different things, so no wonder they can't agree =) Also, it seems that certain words become 'trigger words', touching some more primitive parts of the human brain, summoning an agitated gut-reaction. And when agitated, the human brain doesn't stop to discuss philosophy. If one feels that the essential core values are under an existential threat, one doesn't want to slow down to discuss 'hey what exactly do you mean by this or that term, can we go into details of defining concepts before we punch each other in the nose?'

That being said, I think 'Europe' is a far too broad term to define a set of common mentality. Although, yes, I'd guess on average there are some typical differences between American and European way of seeing certain cultural values - and also, here in the Nordics we had developed a society slightly different from the rest of Europe, which again makes the concepts of like 'state', 'nation', 'taxes', 'society', or 'government' appear differently, depending if you ask the average Swede or the average Italian. Simply because we have grown up in different kind of cultural environments. And, indeed, in addition the imaginary 'average people' there sure are divides and different subsets of values. For some 'national pride' means that you are entitled to hate and to bully people from other countries. And for some 'national pride' means that if your country would be invaded you'd take up arms and fight back, but otherwise you are perfectly happy to socialize with people from your neighbouring countries, preferring peaceful coexistence over hatred.

As you might know, these topics have heated up over the past two years or so. In Europe we have had a surge in refugees, and at the same time the old Russia vs. The West military tensions have been building up. Personally, I've been baffled by the sheer amount of misinformation, agitation, trolling and hatred which seems to swallow up every attempt at rational discussion on these topics. That was one of the reasons I've been writing more of personal diaries and less commenting on philosophical themes related to groups, tribes and values =)

So, a final note for this comment. Once when Finland's ice hockey team won a game against Sweden's team there were reports of a peak in Swedish-speaking people getting bullied. And a posse of Finnish people even drove cross the border to the Swedish side, breaking stuff and insulting people etc. This is the sort of ugly 'national pride', which for some people seems to mean that you believe that your tribe is above the others, and that pushing others down makes you feel high. Also, from the European point of view, not so long time ago there was a certain leader in Germany who rallied people to believe in this sort of national pride. It didn't go very well, neither for Germany nor for the other European countries. I think this sort of questions still affect the way we think and speak about 'nationality' etc. And the way I see it, instead of sticking with the stone-age concepts, I think we'd better seek new ways of understanding things like 'nationality'. To me it doesn't seem like a hard thing - if you love your own cultural tradition, it makes it easier to peacefully coexists with people of different traditions - simple like that? But, somehow, seems like this topic has been generating huge amount of trolling and hatred.