Patriotism is defined as….
The notion of patriotism – loosely defined as the love of one’s
country – is as old as the State itself. Even before recorded
history, in such mythological fables as those of Homer, we are told
of brave warriors like Achilles who were willing to fight to the
death for the honor of their country. In the United States, too,
leaders from President Kennedy to Lincoln to Bush have appealed to
our patriotism in an effort to rouse our support for a variety of
causes.
One doesn’t have to look far, however, to see there also are
those who use the word as a weapon. When a citizen or group of
citizens disagrees with a particular policy, an easy way to attack
that group while avoiding the issue at hand is to label them
unpatriotic, or more often, “anti-American.” Even in a country like
our own, where dissent and pluralistic debate are at the very heart
of government, we hear (for example) that liberals who oppose the
war on Iraq or the PATROIT Act are anti-American, or that if one
doesn’t support every last decision of the executive
administration, then they don’t love their country. Even during the
Vietnam era, future President Ronald Reagen accused those who
marched against the war of “giving comfort to the enemy.”
As politician Adlai Stevenson has said, “To strike freedom of
the mind with the fist of patriotism is an old and ugly
subtlety.”
Is it true that, if one disagrees with their government, they
are guilty of anti-Americanism? Just what does it mean to be a
patriot? For that matter, what does it mean to be an American or an
anti-American? Why is it that those on the right so often associate
themselves exclusively with patriotism? Do liberals really hate
their country?
Let’s imagine for a second that a patriot really is someone who
agrees with and fervently supports whatever their country happens
to be doing at the time. This sort of patriot would be committed to
the principle that whatever laws are passed or decisions made,
those decisions would be morally and pragmatically the best ones.
Logically, this patriot would condemn all alternative scenarios as
immoral and ineffective. Those who supported these alternatives for
whatever reasons would thus be immoral and unpatriotic people.
Now suppose a bill is passed one year and then a new congress
and new president are elected and pass another bill nullifying the
last one. What is our patriot to do in this case? Naturally, they
must have supported the first bill, since they support each and
every action their government takes. They may have even told those
who opposed the bill that they were being unpatriotic. However, if
the patriot supported the second bill, they would be committed to
admitting that they and their country had been wrong in supporting
the first one. This patriot knows that their country can do no
wrong, and yet it seems that it must have been wrong in one of the
two cases.
This little scenario is meant to make the simple point that
patriotism defined as supporting whatever one’s country does at all
times is not only difficult, but it is in fact logically
impossible. One must judge the State on independent ethical
criteria, otherwise the whole notion of right and wrong becomes, in
effect, nonexistent.
There is another kind of patriot that better fits the
constraints of morality. This is the kind of patriot that people
like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. have tried to
represent; it is the person who loves their country for the ideals
it represents, and is not afraid to criticize particular actions of
the government if those actions violate those ideals. If, for
example, a president leads the nation to an unjust war, these
patriots may feel that is their duty to protect their country by
opposing the unjust actions of that particular president. Now these
protesters may or may not be right, just as any of us may or may
not be right about any given choice we make, but it would be
asinine and groundless to attempt to question the patriotism of
these citizens.
To quote the writer Richard Falk, “Confusing patriotism with
unconditional support for government policy does core damage to the
meaning of citizenship.” In other words, if we want to call
ourselves honest citizens, we can not use the charge of
insufficient patriotism against those who make honest efforts to
propose what is best for their country. We should instead recognize
that, while a person may be wrong about one piece of policy or
another, they are most likely doing only what they see as right. We
can criticize their ideas, but not their loyalty to their country.
That would be true patriotism.
Brent is a freshman studying philosophy. His column runs every
Tuesday.
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