Patriotic Ingenuousness

This booklet contains four chapters, which treat ingenuousness on an individual, professional, institutional, and collective level. All these levels have in common that the people involved do not at all understand why the outsiders consider their views as ingenuous (naïve). The main focus is on ingenuousness on the collective level, commonly known as nationalism. Nationalism is a distortion of patriotism, which is a classical, Aristotelian virtue. Unwittingly, nationalists serve the purpose of globalism, their sworn enemy. Globalism uses nationalist ingenuousness to create friction between countries, and within a country, between citizens. Unlike many other forces operating in society, globalism has no face. The author hopes to contribute to unveiling its mask.