Question 13

“The man who finds his own country sweet is only a raw beginner” – that much I agree with. This, to me, invokes the image of the American hick who proclaims that America is the best country on earth, having not actually been to any other country in person. This sort of base ignorance is repugnant. If the quote is to be interpreted as saying that any man not yet jaded by his country is only a raw beginner, I would agree with that, as well; no country is perfect, and it only takes a small amount of insight to see that this is the case. Therefore, any man who does not have some gripe with his country is not looking very hard – and is therefore a raw beginner.

“The man for whom each country is as his own is already strong; but only the man for whom the whole world is as a foreign country is perfect”. Here, I agree also, but with a slightly different take on what the quote means, exactly. Here, I interpret it as being about the people inhabiting those foreign countries. “The man for whom each country is as his own”, to me, signifies a man who views his country as being equal to others, and so the people within those countries are just as important as the citizens of his home country. “The man for whom the whole world is as a foreign country” signifies a man who is entirely blind to the entire concept of a country, who views the citizens of his country as being equal to those of any other country the same as the previous sort of man based on the sole merit of everybody involved being human.