Social democrats must be willing to rethink both their ethos and what this ethos implies, but they must also, as the late Tony Judt argued relatively recently, be proud of what they have got.
They are tough, proud and relatively egalitarian.
Today it has plenty of problems, but it is proud, peaceful and relatively prosperous.
Now spring forth my soon-to-be fellow relatively fit people and be proud of those six-minute kilometres.
How is it that the imagination of the Australian public during this World Cup has been captured by nations which may be intensely proud but are relatively tiny and a long way away?
Get to know the president -- earn a nickname, talk box scores with him, praise something he did in Texas (that's when he was flying relatively solo, so he's proudest of those achievements).
Kody Brown is a proud polygamist, and a relatively famous one.
The Baganda, a quarter of the country's 24m people, dominate the relatively prosperous south, and are fiercely proud of their history.
I've produced some movies which I'm very proud of that were relatively 'quiet', such as American Gigolo, Dangerous Minds, Veronica Guerin, Remember The Titans and Glory Road".
Yet the reason for it was relatively simple, and scant comfort to any proud citizen of Red Sox Nation — the team has been in free fall since Sept. 1, when Boston was 83-52 and seemed assured of a spot in the postseason.
