See also Richard Rorty - "Does Being an American Give One a Moral Identity?”
“If one lives under a dictatorship, it is a bad thing to let one’s citizenship contribute to forming one’s moral identity. If one lives in a functioning constitutional democracy, I would argue, it is an unequivocally good thing. It amounts to being idealistic about one’s country, something citizens of a democracy ought to be. To abandon such idealism amounts to opting out, to becoming an ironic spectator of the nation rather than a participant in its political life.”
“There is no reason for us to deny that our country has been racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist, and all the rest of it. But there is every reason to remember that it has also been capable of reforming itself, over and over again… The historical memories of those successes ought to be enough to make it possible for us to incorporate our American citizenship into our moral identities.”
“A government is not the country any more than a priesthood is the religion. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to All Saints Church in Wittenberg, he aimed to start a debate, not a revolution. While he was deeply invested in reforming and improving the church, Luther never abandoned Christianity. He never lost his faith. You can criticize your country but keep your faith in it too—liberty and justice for all is a goal, not necessarily a description.” Gold. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that America was synonymous with DC, not “O beautiful for spacious skies
Thank you for writing this. I needed something to take heart in, and you gave me that this morning. When I turn inward, I realize I've always felt an abiding love for my country and countrymen, and yearn to feel that way again. Have a lovely Independence Day!
I really liked and appreciated this essay. I am American. My parents were refugees from Czechoslovakia where my father served time in a labor camp for being anti-communist and my mother was prohibited from attending school after the age of 15. I currently tutor a student from a Latin American country afflicted by gang violence, and I support a nonprofit in Uganda that's the only vet hospital serving a region of 8 million people where kids still die of rabies. America has always been a work in progress but it's a worthy project, and we need to quit with the self-flagellation and focus on our shared values, like equality. We can't lose hope because there aren't many other better places to go. Sure, it'd probably be nice to live in Denmark, but Denmark isn't taking in 300m Americans.
Excellent post Bookbinder. It is meet and right to feel gratitude for living in such a great country. Living as a free people is challenging and at times messy but thankfully our forebears made the decision to pursue independence 249 years ago. Happy 4th.
When arguing in favour of electoral reform on another blog yesterday, someone said to me: turkeys don't vote for Christmas. I replied that the enemies of Christmas are not turkeys but toymakers, who undermine the very spirit of Christmas by making it a gift-giving bonanza from which they can only profit. He retorted by saying he was an atheist.
It's not dissimilar: one vaunts the idea of Christmas, or of patriotism in your case, only to avow a disinterest in how it's perceived, whilst using it as an argument in one's battery.
Either you believe in Christmas for what Christmas means, or you don't, in which case you have no truck in using it as an example.
And either you believe in patriotism for that means, or you don't, in which case step aside and let true patriots state what their patriotism means.
Hmm. I'm not sure it is so easy to determine the extent to which the toymakers created the demand at Christmas or merely grew to satisfy the demand at Christmas. But that aside, I'm not really sure I understand your argument. What does a true patriot think that patriotism means?
That was a throw-away remark, I admit. I suppose a true patriot can be viewed as someone who is blind to all the faults of his country and whose adoration and allegiance are predicated on either love or material benefit, much the same as the basis for family loyalty. In there is some kind of all or nothing equation that deems the country whose passport you hold must be perfect. In the case of the US, there is even the mantra of exceptionalism to back that up. America is perfect, even if the facts show it not to be, it still is perfect. Anyone who naysays that cannot by definition be patriotic. Supposed patriots never question the rightness of what their country does. A true patriot, I suppose, is therefore, rather than being one who is blind to his country's faults, instead someone who's prepared to say his country isn't perfect, and risk the wrath of his patriotic countrymen for doing so.
In World War I, there was a story of a Mennonite minister who refused to hoist a patriotic flag outside his home near Whitewater, Kansas. A mob decided in April 1918 to go to his home and force him to put up a flag. This he did, then suggested they all sing "America." However, his tormenters knew the words of only the first verse, and, as the ensuing verses were sung, it was soon the minister who was the only person singing.
The Mennonite refused to take up arms in conflict, but knew every word of the patriotic songs of America. The "patriots", while not fighting the war, were happy to "torment" a pacifist minister; they were unwilling to sign up to fight for America at the front, but were quite happy to force patriotic symbols out of the pacifists who remained at home. So, who was the patriot?
The notion is doomed from the start. Leftist histories are predicated on filtering the work of academics into the public consciousness and the only positive stories academia reveal about America are in relation to the broader world - as a comparatively much less awful refuge to Europe predicated on a shared society, a bringer of peace in the place of the world wars or as a source of commodities and markets to colonized countries mired in authoritarianism.
Telling any positive stories that are academically verifiable, today, needs a much higher median reading level and ability to read a map.
This is a great piece. What strikes me from your argument is that the Left’s approach to the flag is itself a form of nationalism albeit inverted because it views it as all wrong instead of all right. Would the Left be flag-waving nationalists if the country was remade to completely reflect their values? Seems like it.
I think coming together with people who don’t share your values in unity because you both share the same nationality is a better picture. Both the nationalist and leftist treat patriotism in an unreasonable, tribal way.
Sure, I think that's sounds like a fine picture too...but I have trouble visualizing that picture when one side's value is, say, pluralistic liberal democracy, and the other side's value is, say, white christian nationalism. I guess I'm saying that some values are more compatible with that vision of everyone coming together in unity than others. And I'm wondering what you would propose for those whose values aren't so compatible with coming together in unity.
I’m a Christian, and western civilization and morality is grounded in Christian values. Our civilization is based upon Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem. To ask for a different value system is to undermine our civilization itself, which is what progressives, especially those who reject the flag, are bringing upon our nation.
What you mean when you say "coming together with people who don't share your values in unity" is coming together with people who don't share your values ... and making them share your values....
That's a way to interpret "in unity," although maybe not how everyone would read it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm against the idea, but it is going to have to be *my* values in which we are coming together in unity. So, what do you say? Are you in? I mean, in the name of the better picture and the triumph over that ugly tribalism and nationalism....
See also Richard Rorty - "Does Being an American Give One a Moral Identity?”
“If one lives under a dictatorship, it is a bad thing to let one’s citizenship contribute to forming one’s moral identity. If one lives in a functioning constitutional democracy, I would argue, it is an unequivocally good thing. It amounts to being idealistic about one’s country, something citizens of a democracy ought to be. To abandon such idealism amounts to opting out, to becoming an ironic spectator of the nation rather than a participant in its political life.”
“There is no reason for us to deny that our country has been racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist, and all the rest of it. But there is every reason to remember that it has also been capable of reforming itself, over and over again… The historical memories of those successes ought to be enough to make it possible for us to incorporate our American citizenship into our moral identities.”
“A government is not the country any more than a priesthood is the religion. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to All Saints Church in Wittenberg, he aimed to start a debate, not a revolution. While he was deeply invested in reforming and improving the church, Luther never abandoned Christianity. He never lost his faith. You can criticize your country but keep your faith in it too—liberty and justice for all is a goal, not necessarily a description.” Gold. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that America was synonymous with DC, not “O beautiful for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!”
"Confirm thy soul in self-control,/ Thy liberty in law!" My favorite lines from my favorite patriotic song.
Thank you for writing this. I needed something to take heart in, and you gave me that this morning. When I turn inward, I realize I've always felt an abiding love for my country and countrymen, and yearn to feel that way again. Have a lovely Independence Day!
I really liked and appreciated this essay. I am American. My parents were refugees from Czechoslovakia where my father served time in a labor camp for being anti-communist and my mother was prohibited from attending school after the age of 15. I currently tutor a student from a Latin American country afflicted by gang violence, and I support a nonprofit in Uganda that's the only vet hospital serving a region of 8 million people where kids still die of rabies. America has always been a work in progress but it's a worthy project, and we need to quit with the self-flagellation and focus on our shared values, like equality. We can't lose hope because there aren't many other better places to go. Sure, it'd probably be nice to live in Denmark, but Denmark isn't taking in 300m Americans.
Excellent post Bookbinder. It is meet and right to feel gratitude for living in such a great country. Living as a free people is challenging and at times messy but thankfully our forebears made the decision to pursue independence 249 years ago. Happy 4th.
When arguing in favour of electoral reform on another blog yesterday, someone said to me: turkeys don't vote for Christmas. I replied that the enemies of Christmas are not turkeys but toymakers, who undermine the very spirit of Christmas by making it a gift-giving bonanza from which they can only profit. He retorted by saying he was an atheist.
It's not dissimilar: one vaunts the idea of Christmas, or of patriotism in your case, only to avow a disinterest in how it's perceived, whilst using it as an argument in one's battery.
Either you believe in Christmas for what Christmas means, or you don't, in which case you have no truck in using it as an example.
And either you believe in patriotism for that means, or you don't, in which case step aside and let true patriots state what their patriotism means.
Hmm. I'm not sure it is so easy to determine the extent to which the toymakers created the demand at Christmas or merely grew to satisfy the demand at Christmas. But that aside, I'm not really sure I understand your argument. What does a true patriot think that patriotism means?
That was a throw-away remark, I admit. I suppose a true patriot can be viewed as someone who is blind to all the faults of his country and whose adoration and allegiance are predicated on either love or material benefit, much the same as the basis for family loyalty. In there is some kind of all or nothing equation that deems the country whose passport you hold must be perfect. In the case of the US, there is even the mantra of exceptionalism to back that up. America is perfect, even if the facts show it not to be, it still is perfect. Anyone who naysays that cannot by definition be patriotic. Supposed patriots never question the rightness of what their country does. A true patriot, I suppose, is therefore, rather than being one who is blind to his country's faults, instead someone who's prepared to say his country isn't perfect, and risk the wrath of his patriotic countrymen for doing so.
In World War I, there was a story of a Mennonite minister who refused to hoist a patriotic flag outside his home near Whitewater, Kansas. A mob decided in April 1918 to go to his home and force him to put up a flag. This he did, then suggested they all sing "America." However, his tormenters knew the words of only the first verse, and, as the ensuing verses were sung, it was soon the minister who was the only person singing.
The Mennonite refused to take up arms in conflict, but knew every word of the patriotic songs of America. The "patriots", while not fighting the war, were happy to "torment" a pacifist minister; they were unwilling to sign up to fight for America at the front, but were quite happy to force patriotic symbols out of the pacifists who remained at home. So, who was the patriot?
“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
― Carl Schurz
The notion is doomed from the start. Leftist histories are predicated on filtering the work of academics into the public consciousness and the only positive stories academia reveal about America are in relation to the broader world - as a comparatively much less awful refuge to Europe predicated on a shared society, a bringer of peace in the place of the world wars or as a source of commodities and markets to colonized countries mired in authoritarianism.
Telling any positive stories that are academically verifiable, today, needs a much higher median reading level and ability to read a map.
https://www.truthhistoryandmore.com/overview.php
This is a great piece. What strikes me from your argument is that the Left’s approach to the flag is itself a form of nationalism albeit inverted because it views it as all wrong instead of all right. Would the Left be flag-waving nationalists if the country was remade to completely reflect their values? Seems like it.
Does that seem unreasonable to you? Celebrating intentionally shared values over, what, celebrating the accident of shared nationality?
I think coming together with people who don’t share your values in unity because you both share the same nationality is a better picture. Both the nationalist and leftist treat patriotism in an unreasonable, tribal way.
Sure, I think that's sounds like a fine picture too...but I have trouble visualizing that picture when one side's value is, say, pluralistic liberal democracy, and the other side's value is, say, white christian nationalism. I guess I'm saying that some values are more compatible with that vision of everyone coming together in unity than others. And I'm wondering what you would propose for those whose values aren't so compatible with coming together in unity.
I’m a Christian, and western civilization and morality is grounded in Christian values. Our civilization is based upon Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem. To ask for a different value system is to undermine our civilization itself, which is what progressives, especially those who reject the flag, are bringing upon our nation.
(Also, you know that Rome, for most of its existence, was not Christian, and neither was Athens or Jerusalem, right?)
I see.
What you mean when you say "coming together with people who don't share your values in unity" is coming together with people who don't share your values ... and making them share your values....
That's a way to interpret "in unity," although maybe not how everyone would read it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm against the idea, but it is going to have to be *my* values in which we are coming together in unity. So, what do you say? Are you in? I mean, in the name of the better picture and the triumph over that ugly tribalism and nationalism....