Imagine there’s no country? It’s not easy, even if you try.

Do you not love this country? Many Canadians who travel, rightfully count their stars they were born in the region we now call Canada.

But should they be, “proud” to be Canadian, as implored by the names of so many Facebook groups that peddle the collection of opinions assigned to the right-of-centre power time-share in this country?

Well, not necessarily.

But this is not because it’s shameful to be Canadian either. Or because you should prefer the opinions of that other classification. It just quite simply does not make sense, in this day and age, for a thinking person to base their real sense of pride on a nation they happen to live in. It’s particularly tenuous in Canada and our consciences know it, seeking a sort of overcompensation through affirmation that these groups capitalize on.

Worse than not making sense, such a basis of pride is dangerous. Why? Because Canada, perhaps even more than most countries, doesn’t have a fixed meaning.

What does make sense to take pride in, is a clear principle defined, adopted and lived up to. That way if they are not lived up to, the threat of loss of pride motivates principle holders to do better, choose other leaders and policies. Differences recognized can be debated, and allies formed around explicit ideas.

If there are popular principles in this land that we should take pride in, one of them is certainly the relatively low opinion of flag-waving.

Much as Nietzsche wrote that god was dead because new ideas had killed him, so too is nationhood among Canada’s settlers. We have killed the ability to have undying faith in the idea. We can either come to terms with this and adjust how we think of nationhood and pride, or run away from the realization.

It is not a symptom of something wrong that we have an ongoing Canadian identity crisis. It is a sober, evolved view of a sophisticated population that can’t un-learn the self-consciousness of national myth-making we partake in and witness globally through history. Through multiculturalism, recognition of multiple narratives and popular understanding of historical manipulations we’ve tried to correct, we have lost the innocence that allows a nation to seem to have an essence. We are incapable going back without bad-faith.

A desire to have membership in a group and to take pride in something are among the most powerful in humanity.

When anyone tries to summon those powerful desires and aim them towards an arbitrary symbol — a king, a nation, a flag — they are appealing to the some of the worst kinds of expression of these human desires. Whether to sell a beer, a hockey sweater or less trivially, a political party.

And whether a summoner is purely motivated, having been swelled up themselves by this notion, or intentionally manipulating a group, we know from history that if nationalism grows to a certain point, the undesirable results are likely the same.

The prideful nationalist is encouraged not to consider what precisely is good or bad about the country and the sets of principles that may now define its actions, but rather to focus on their membership and the country itself, whatever it may do. Whatever it is, it will remain essentially Canadian, and therefore a source of pride.

So if it seems like sacrilege to be opposed to being a proud Canadian, it’s likely because it feels like that would be to say you are against universal health care, acting as wartime peacekeepers, beautiful nature, being polite, welcoming newcomers and multiculturalism, or that you’re just not a team player in this land, for some people.

Men and women who are proud Canadians who do not love nor take pride in any of these things have foisted flags and rounded up the political support of many who do take pride in these, or a completely different set of principles that the flag calls to mind for them.

Post-Nationalism then, is not an attempt to give up any of those beautiful feelings you have when you see a Canadian flag, or perhaps when our system of athletic reward and training causes us to perform well on a global stage.

It is the demand for clarity, whenever appropriate, to call out what precisely we are celebrating and aiming to preserve or strive for together so that we are not easily manipulated. To move beyond, as much as is possible given its appeal, the empty symbology of national pride to focus on clear principles and scrutiny of the ones held by whoever may foist a flag.

It is a commitment to playfully tease out the appeals to ill-defined national pride we are all guilty of at times. To call attention to the nation myth-making that takes place in our media — which have, more than most countries — always played a pivotal role in creating something of a brand we call a nation.