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July 10, 2008
Exclusive: On the Meaning of Patriotism
What is patriotism? In something of an exercise in political nostalgia, it has, in this particular election season, become an unexpectedly hot topic. Perhaps it is because the Democrat candidate, Barack Obama, is surrounded by so many people who so clearly hate this nation and all it stands for that some of us wonder why it is that he is so comfortable with them and they with him. We suspect that their disdain for the United States and its history and institutions is his disdain for its history and institutions. It is natural, therefore, to ask whether he is patriotic enough to be president.
So, after reawakening the great national debate about race, Mr. Obama has now recharged the perennial national debate about patriotism. It is as if all the unresolved questions of the 1960s have suddenly again become current.
The concept of patriotism predates the United States by millennia. As its name implies, a derivation of "patria", Latin for "father", it is based upon the concept of a national family; a family comprised of people related by ethnicity. Nations, after all, have traditionally been defined by the ethnicity of their citizens so it is natural that they would think of their nations as a sort of extended family inextricably bound together by culture, history and blood. Indeed, it is probable that early "patriotism" was commitment to a tribe that was related to a large extent by blood. As tribes combined, grew in numbers and organized into nations, it followed that that devotion to tribe would become a commitment to nation. It is their blessing and their curse because a commitment to tribe, while compelling, is not a commitment to principle and that lends itself to instability of governmental form as the overarching celebration of ethnicity thwarts national definition in any other way.
A common ethnicity has always been the foundation of nationhood. That is why in nations other than our own, the citizens so often refer to their countries as "fatherland" or "motherland." Those terms have never rested easily on the United States, indeed, have never been applied to it, and have never been a feature in calls to national action or in American campaigns for office. Nationalism is simply a more aggressive strain of the same impulse. It goes beyond pride of nation to the idea of the superiority of one over the other that, in its more virulent forms, results in the follow on concept that the inferior should be conquered.
Patriotism is a concept that never anticipated a nation like ours. Ours is the only nation in history that is based on an idea rather than ethnicity. It is defined by an identifiable, agreed upon set of concepts rather than upon the common background of its citizens. So it is that "patriotism" is, for us, so hard to define. It would be easy if we were all substantially of one race. It would be simple if we could simply indulge in a romantic tie to land and family and say that it is this land, it is this family to which we are committed. But Americans cannot do that because we are so different from one another. Although England was comprised of various ethnic groups, its early history was one of the conquest of one by the other until a common ethnicity evolved with a common culture so that even with its high degree of stratification, royal and peasant shared blood and background.
The United States, on the other hand, is a nation built of more ethnicities than any other and although we have suffered occasional ethnic tensions, we have largely avoided the systematic ethnic murder other countries have experienced. Our one central unifying force is the American philosophy and that is the concept of individual liberty. We were born in freedom on the assumption that each individual carried with him certain inalienable rights. Our philosophy was that in freeing the individual to do and achieve, we would create a nation of heroes unfettered by notions of limit and class privilege.
We founded this nation on the basis of individual freedom leavened by individual responsibility; of achievement and reward through individual initiative unbound by the envy of others. Ours was a society that celebrated individual achievement and, until recently, focused its greatest admiration on its heroes. We believed in leaders and those whose individual virtue, intelligence and power resulted in the achievement of great learning, great works, great ideas, great wealth and the spread of the greatest idea in human history: individual freedom. It is reflected in our literature and our movies. It is, to this day, that to which most of us aspire. It is no accident that the movie Braveheart was one of the most successful in history. It was no mistake that the cowboy genre of American cinema, the good guy fighting for justice against the bad guy fighting for oppression, was the longest running, most successful franchise in film history. We celebrate heroes: those who stand against oppression for the good of freedom. The Star Wars phenomenon was, at base, the American story and a future look at our central concept.
Our freedom came at a price. It came at the heavy cost of lives and treasure as we, unlike other nations, fought for ideals rather than for land. Our involvement in the wars in Europe was not because of an interest in conquest or for purposes of plundering the wealth of others. Indeed, we outlawed the seizing of treasure from those we defeated. It was not based on ancient ethnic hatreds or national tensions. It was based on our dedication to our central idea: freedom and to our belief that that concept was worth the lives of our citizens so that not only would their freedom be preserved but freedom could be extended to others who had never known it. That American philosophy has served as a beacon to others and has ushered in upheaval throughout the world as those, seeing our example, have acted to secure that one great ideal for themselves. Some have succeed, others not. But even when they have not exactly gotten the idea right, it was our idea that inspired them.
So, what is patriotism when applied to the United States? It is a devotion to the ideas on which this nation was founded. It is support for the philosophy on which it is based. It is a willingness to fight for the ideal of individual liberty in the face of threats from within and without. It is also having a firm understanding of American exceptionalism. It is recognizing that no other nation has ever fought only for principle. It is seeing that our history is unlike any other. It is knowing that when other nations have engaged in warfare, it has been for conquest, wealth, territory and to settle ethnic scores but that when we have gone to war, it is for ideas - for the American idea of freedom - that we have fought. And that makes us different from every other nation in history. Patriotism is recognizing these truths.
I was struck the other day in discussion with a friend when she said she did not think we had a right, as a nation, to attempt to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons. "Who are we", she said "to deny another nation the right to have weapons we have?" This is a woman who deeply resents those who question the patriotism of those on the Left whose view of this nation is that it is a nation with a history of venality, oppression and imperialism. To be unwilling to see the qualitative and moral difference between the United States and Iran is to lack either judgment or patriotism. But it is the result of a secular, public education that has taught moral relativism as the greatest good rather than judgment as a moral imperative. We are different because our ideas and motives are different. Are our ideas and motives better? Absolutely.
If patriotism is love of country in other places, it is love of the idea of our country in our own. Whatever patriotism might be, "unpatriotism," as the antonym, is to attack that idea. It is to take the side of another nation against our own in disputes between the two. It is to glory, as did so many during the Vietnam era, in our defeat by other nations. It is to fail to recognize that while vigorous disputes between us and within our own national family are a part of our central concept, once the decision has been collectively made, as under our system it is, it is incumbent upon us to support the national will. In a nation like ours in which decisions are made by our representatives freely chosen, we will sometimes be on the losing side of the debate. But that does not lessen our obligation to support our country's decisions, once made, in relation to other nations.
This has been a particularly frenetic year for me. My business has taken me to the four corners of the earth and my work has taken on an unfamiliar urgency as the needs of clients have cascaded from emergency to crisis. As gratifying as it is to be the source of trust and solution, it begins to wear as the troubles of others become yours to solve. So it was that I took some time for myself this past week and went to a movie for respite. I saw what I expected to be a light, escapist confection called Wall-E, the newest product of Disney's Pixar Animation.
On the surface, it was a cute love story between lovable robots. But there was a deeper message here. It was the message of a world lost to complacency. For those who do not know the story, earth has become unlivable to human beings who wander about space in a gigantic space ship waited on by programmed robots that take care of every human need - except connection one with the other and with a greater purpose. So waited on they are that they no longer walk because they do not need to and their pudgy worthless legs have become stubby appendages without purpose.
In the end, it becomes a story of heroism and purpose. It becomes the story of human beings seeing what it is they have lost by inattention. But the heroism comes in their understanding that there is a higher purpose than personal comfort and their (literally) standing up on their two legs and (led by an unlikely hero) seizing the initiative to return to a blighted earth to recapture what they abandoned. It is a rudimentary call to patriotism and the need to value what you have through initiative and work rather than to continue following the sirens' call to unearned comfort. Perhaps, before it is too late, our people will recognize and rededicate themselves to the great American ideal - to a renewed patriotism - lest we lose what it is that made us great. It is truly time, now, for us to renew our commitment to the great ideas that define us as a nation - to patriotism - that our tomorrow will be as glorious as our yesterday.
As for patriotism, perhaps, in the end, we are left with a reformulation of Justice Stewart's contemplation on pornography. Maybe we cannot define it precisely. But we know it when we see it and we understand, on a visceral level, when it is absent.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor John W. Howard is a lawyer, specializing in corporate and business litigation who also founded a non-profit, public interest law firm specializing in First, Second and Tenth Amendment issues. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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