| Chapter 1: | Defining Patriotism |
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of patriotism as always being located somewhere in between. Patriotism, according to this attitude, might be a little more blind and authoritarian at times and more constructive and democratic at other times, but it will always retain characteristics of both opposing views, as contradictory as they might be.
It is for this reason that the quantitative sample of this research, purposive and not random in its nature, has included various expressions of reference to the country, its people, and its legends, at times even negating some. Take, for example, the attitude of 35-year-old Ilana, who built her home in a kibbutz in a very remote location in the middle of the southern steppe desert land of the Arava. She spends her lifetime encouraging people from all over the world to join this settlement that is based on principles of ecology and environmentalism. Her words reveal a democratic approach to patriotism:
This can be compared with the perspective of Rutty, a 24-year-old dancer who immigrated from the Former Soviet Union when she was 16. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, she performed voluntarily in the war-torn northern Israeli towns in which people were spending their time in and out of shelters. Her expressions reveal patriotism of a more authoritarian nature:
Regardless of the variations, the state and the nation are considered in this study to be the ultimate objects of patriotic loyalty. However, the