Patriotism: What is it good for?
Published by Sabotabby July 4th, 2007 in Fucking Holidays, Politics, SoapboxA friend posed the question, “Are you patriotic?” on his blog. My response elicited a fairly interesting discussion wherein the utilitarian value of patriotism was debated.
Because it’s not just that I’m not patriotic. The thought of my own nation seems precariously abstract, with its imaginary lines and precarious sovereignty and identity. It brings up as many negative associations (colonialism, slavery, residential schools, deportations, rampant homelessness, attacks on Haïti and Afghanistan, being the first country to refuse to recognize the results of the Palestinian election) as warm fuzzy feelings (health care, and…health care. For now.). But it’s more than that, because you can love something despite its flaws, and many people find themselves capable of critical patriotism that allows them to fight passionately to perfect their nation. It’s that I, personally, can’t understand what emotionally compels an individual to feel pride in place, or to hang a flag outside of their house.
Every time I visit the States, I’m astounded at how many American flags are on display. It’s as though people are afraid that they’ll forget which country they’re in, and have to reassure themselves with constant reminders. It’s not just a symbol of nation, but a symbol of various qualities: authenticity, quality (”Made in the U.S.A.!”). For some, it’s a sign of aggression (”This home is defended by guns and attack dogs!”) for others, that one is non-threatening (”This convenience store is run by Muslims, but we’re not those Muslims; we’re proud Americans!”). It’s far more common, and imbued with far deeper and more complicated meanings than the Canadian flag is here. It’s almost automatic in some places—if you’re not visually expressing your patriotism, what’s wrong with you?
Quite a few Canadians claim to love Canada the way Americans love America. I spent Canada Day in a pub where they gave out sparklers for a drinking game: Every time someone lit one, everyone was to toast the country. It’s not that we don’t do patriotism here. It’s that I don’t understand what makes someone patriotic.
The utilitarian arguments advanced in the blog discussion were taxes and social order and productivity, the latter two meant to draw human effort away from selfish, profit-oriented pursuits and towards broader, cooperative goals. This is worthwhile (assuming that the nation itself isn’t selfish and profit-oriented), but nothing that couldn’t be accomplished on local (more concrete and democratic) or regional/global (more universal) levels.
Some questions, then: Are you patriotic? Is it for emotional or utilitarian reasons? How do you express it? What good can patriotism accomplish, if any? Is there a difference between national love and national pride? Today, can the nation-state ever be a progressive force?
I don’t see nationalism as something emotional, but some people are bigots and they try to excuse it as nationalism. I don’t see it as utility either although a lot of people use nationalism as an excuse to guard their self-interests like labour unions speaking against illegal immigrants for example.
I think nationalism is simply necessary for people to function in modern times. If I did not have a nation state, I’d be screwed over by all the people who do. And we see it happen.
I don’t expect a Canadian to be patriotic on a concious level because we will still get just as good healthcare either way, be welcomed in to other countries as Canadians, and although there’s a lot of ways that the Canadian state doesn’t treat all its inhabitants equally, it still privileges us as citizens (or soon-to-be citizens) over non-citizens. Nationalist feelings don’t usually kick in until its soveirgnty is under threat. So I find it pretty alarming and intimidating when I see someone waving a Canadian flag like they are trying to rub it in.
I think there’s a usefulness to the sort of patriotism that makes you think you’re all in this together. Like it’s a point of national pride not to help your fellow citizens. If patriotism was about how we in America don’t let people sleep on the streets or die from lack of health care, I could behind that.
What gets me is patriotism as exceptionalism, the idea that we’re better because we’re America. It doesn’t makes sense, because people in every country might as well think that about themselves, and they can’t all be better-than.
A lot of America’s prosperity came from from finding this big land full of great resources that was only populated by natives who were poorly armed and easily pushed aside. It was a great land, not great people.
The way I feel about my country is a reflection of the way I feel about myself. I was lucky to be born here, lucky to have an educated and prosperous family, lucky to be male, lucky to be white, lucky to be straight, lucky to not be disabled. I try to be a nice guy, but can’t think of myself as great. I’m doing well because I’m in a wealthy society made for and run by people like me.
I wish that the prevailing attitude toward America by americans were the same as my attitude toward my station in life: we’re lucky to be here, and let’s not lord it over people who were less lucky.
What’s it good for? About as much good as organized religion, racism, sexism, and classism. And as long as we are still human, and don’t manage to evolve into some entirely different creature, we’ll always have all of those things.
All of those things, patriotism/nationalism included, are just advanced forms of tribalism. One thing I truly believe is that a primal urge toward tribalism is encoded tightly into our DNA. Sports teams, spiritual, or armies, we love to pick sides and follow leaders; it’s what we do best. Heck, I do it too. It’s unavoidable. It’s part of what defines us as human.
The good part: they all help us to band together in mutually supportive groups. The bad part: by creating “in-groups”, it ensures that there will always be “out-groups”. In the case of nationalism, it’s what’s allows Americans to cause the deaths of well over half a million Iraqis and not be too bothered by it. (Present company excepted, of course.)
A great article on just this subject, by Howard Zinn, here:
“On July 4th, Put Away the Flags”
Heh. I just realized I ripped half of what I just wrote from it without even realizing.
A couple of my favorite snippets:
“One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history. We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.”
Well, good luck with that!
I’ve been thinking a lot about how cultures are constructed and created, and how the maintenance and creation of culture is an ongoing thing. We can all see the effects of the creation of culture in our own cultures and how they contrast with other cultures. These contrasts exist on national as well as community levels, too.
As a Canadian I think that Canada shows some laudable values, and has some lamentable traits. That scene in the golf cart in Sicko when the Canadian conservative-voting geezer from fucking Windsor (or was it London?) explains to Michael Moore that Canadians, in general, wouldn’t stand for the healthcare system being dismantled is an example of national identity that I find laudable, and wish to encourage and celebrate. Not that we have the best healthcare system in the world, but that, as a nation, we believe strongly that nobody should have to die or be in debt because they have the misfortune to get sick.
When I worked on that civics text, we had a unit on how to be an engaged, involved citizen. Chapters on how to write to your member of Parliament, how to identify which level of government dealt with which issues, how to get involved in demonstrations and protests, and why these activities were important in a functional democracy. Yeah, it was a simplistic treatment, but we were exhorting young people to express dissent, in a textbook for a required course. I think that speaks to an ideology of active, involved citizenship that I can get behind.
That said, we’re insufferable, in Canada. We’re as much products of our own government- and media-generated nationalism as our neighbours to the south, even if we wave fewer flags, and know which country we’re in without having to do so. Those of us in the privileged classes have swallowed the feasts-and-festivals version of Official Multiculturalism, hook, line, and sinker, and we rarely look beyond our celebrations of “diversity” to the real racism that exists in Canadian society—our preference for immigrants from white, European countries, our ongoing inability to address Native issues effectively and to take responsibility for the tragic blunders of colonialism, our use of easily exploited, legal migrant labour from Mexico and the West Indies to support our own agro-businesses to name a few examples.
Our smug belief that we’re civilized and awesome, with our healthcare, our two official languages (neither of which was spoken here before the Europeans colonized), our Official Multiculturalism and government-endorsed celebrations of diversity, and our celebrated “politeness” contribute to a real, dangerous tendency to ignore the fact that much of what is good about our culture is being dismantled under our very eyes, a bit at a time. Our celebrated health care system suffers from mismanagement and a lack of funding: provincial goverments receive less and less money from the federal government, and “de-list” more and more services. In Ontario, vision checks and physio-therapy were de-listed—apparently it’s not important for poor people to be able to see, or for people who have been injured to be completely repaired. Our much vaunted Official Multiculturalism cloaks some distressing changes in our policies towards refugees (fuelled by stories of phony refugee claimants, abusing the system in order to live on Welfare ), “detention centres” that are effectively prisons where refugee claimants (who, by their very nature, tend to arrive without having done much paperwork in advance) can be held without charges or trials. Our celebration of civic involvement stops when protesters refuse to stay within the lines. Increasingly our schools are under-funded and teachers hemmed in with impenetrable bureaucracy and standardized-test requirements.
I think that patriotism is the recognition that many of the ideals that are endemic in Canadian culture are laudable and nifty, and a conscious committment to continuing to build a culture in this country where the good and nifty ideals inform and shape policies and practices that truly reflect them while acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the less laudable stuff we’ve done and that we benefit from.
Sorry for going on.
As for why this should be nationally determined, rather than globally, idealistically, it shouldn’t. Practically, the current arrangement of governments and whatnot means that I have a say, however small and pathetic, in how things happen in Canada, and in the ongoing creation of Canadian culture that I don’t have in other countries. So I might as well exercise that.
I think that there’s a way to be proud of yourself without putting down others, but my experience over time is telling me the maneuver might be too subtle for most people. Can I say that I like the color of my hair without implying that someone else’s hair color is less than? I would like to think. I would like to be able to say that I love Texas without that meaning that New York is somehow less lovable. People are capable much of the time of loving one thing without hating the other. Rising tolerance of homosexuality is about heterosexuals realizing that they are not diminished if someone else is also free, respected and loved.
But somehow the “to love X, you must hate Y” part kicks in at some point and things fall apart.
I am Canadian, and not patriotic. I pretty much toe the Martha Nussbaum line on patriotism.
It is simply irrational and egotistical to attach any value to a country simply because awesome, awesome I was born there.
I’m from Quebec. I detest patriotism. The political discourse here is basically two bunch of patriots screaming at each other that their definition of the ‘patrie’ is the one that we should all be getting behind, and everything else in politics (like say, Left vs Right) is secondary to that shouting match. Bleh. Not my thing.
I just want to mention that the flags-everywhere thing is mostly a post-9/11 development, in this New Yorker’s experience. But I also recall being surprised by the number of flags and other maple-leaf designs when I was up in Canada a few years ago. Maybe flag display is just more noticeable when it’s a flag you’re not used to?
so I’m a bit late to the party but still have 2 cents..
I am so not patriotic. In the usa, where I was born and still am, I understand patriotism to mean allegiance to things like, oh, genocide, slavery, institutionalized white supremacy, capitalism. I am generally confused and annoyed by folks trying to ‘reclaim” patriotism, as in, “peace is patriotic.” Sure, I know folks can make rational seeming arguements for it, but I think patriotism is all about emotional response, and my response to peatriotism is pretty damn emotional. just not the “right” way. what I mean is, patriotism is a tool to get people to respond emotionally, not rationally, and fall into line.
Also, I like to snark that people have flags out so they don’t forget what country they’re in. My kid, on the other hand, is very attumed to the gay pride flag, but doesn’t quite discern it from other flags with stripes, so with the very straight laced relatives in Wisconsin, we saw a boat with a big american flag on it on July 4th, and she said, in a delighted voice, “HEY, LOOK! ALL THE PEOPLE ON THAT BOAT ARE GAY!!!”
god bless america,