I accept that I no doubt align myself with various 'tribes' without really thinking about it, whether it's identifying with some shared geek culture, or indeed with TV pres, I would at least justify those by saying they represent interests, or personality, and that any tribal-stylee bonding is a result of such compatible interests meshing. However, an important distinction to make is that I certainly wouldn't consider myself 'proud' of these identities, just as I cringe at the idea of being 'proud' of being gay, and I feel no inherent kinship to fellow geeks/TV pres enthusiasts/filthy gays.
What I can't begin to identify is any real sense of connection to fellow Scots, Brits, Europeans or whatever arbitrary distinction we draw. I can certainly say quite comfortably there are things about the culture of all of these which I relish, just as I can pick and choose bits of American or Canadian or continental Europrean culture to be attracted to. Crucially though, I take no ownership of that - I think that's where the divisiveness creeps in (it's 'our' sense of humour etc.)
The closest thing to that experience is that depending on what granularity you want to look at (people in your town, your country, your age range, etc. etc.) you might have a certain affinity based purely on shared cultural experiences, but I wouldn't be willing to say that really connects us in any profound way.
So while I can accept that there is some simmering undercurrent - cultural, political, even linguistic that can give us some sort of collective...something, I certainly feel no need to actively identify with it, be proud of it, or 'love' a country I was incidentally born into, and while I suspect we actually don't come at this very differently whereas I just choose to not proactively identify with it, I will never, ever....ever even almost understand supporting a national team in any sport. That would be stretching the tenuous shared cultural identity just a tad for me :p
