system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: “Heritage” is bullshit.

So is pride in achievements that are not your own. National pride/nationalism as well. In the same vein, shame for the actions of people in your nation (past or present) is stupid. 

None of these things were things you did. Nationality should have no more impact on your identity as the model of car you drive, or the type of side you prefer. The concept of heritage as a thing that all people of a cultural/ethnic group share is toxic in our society. It leads to tribalism and unnecessary conflict and racial/ethnic/cultural tension. 

If you’re proud to be an American, for example, you are equating your own identity with the America to an unhealthy level. 

EDIT: RIP inbox. I’ll respond to as many as I can. 

EDIT2: A bit of background about my worldview that negates a number of arguments people have been making:

I view the nationstate as a fundamentally flawed obstruction to the betterment and preservation of humanity. If a lack of national heritage led to a postnational global society, that would be wonderful.
gpt
The stories we create about ourselves, as well as the things we achieve on our own merit are important. Humans are storytellers and we expect characters in stories to have origins and histories. Having a “heritage” doesn’t do anything more for you than creating a background for your story. It provides a context and starting point to explain the things you will achieve. History is flexible enough that heritage can be bent to suit the whims of those who wish to take pride in it. There’s no necessary ill in this, pride in one history need not connote shame in another. 

There’s another way of considering heritage though. While meaningless it is an essentialist characteristic that defines humans like objects. Would you be comfortable wearing the sweater that Hitler died in? (Assuming he’d died wearing a sweater, and it was preserved and dry cleaned.) It would probably make many people less comfortable in the object than a new sweater. Similarly people pay vast sums to own historical artifacts—they have no real “value” but they carry an essential characteristic that humans put value in. Heritage is human essentialism. It is how we imbue ourselves and others with historicity and importance. While false to the individual, it can still give a real personal value, just as an objects presence in history lends it value, despite it still being just an object.