There are two sorts of patriots. One sorts loooks around the world and looks for the places where they do things worse and says "We're not doing as badly as those people. We're OK."

The other sorts looks around and looks for the places where they do things better, and says "We're not doing as well as those people. We're not as OK as we thought we were."

Which sort is more likely to be driven to try to make things better?

When the children in a family turn out bad and do terrible things, you often find people turning round and saying it's the fault of the parents. But when the children of the country turn out bad and do terrible things, you find the same people saying it's not the fault of the country, it's all the fault of the people who turn out bad.