Posted on 11/13/2008 11:02:58 AM PST by Sisku Hanne
I have to write about patriotism for an ethics course, and give a "bad" example of it.
As long as patriotism doesn’t always mean you support your government “no matter what”!?
Agreeing to pay higher taxes annually as an act of "patriotism" comes to mind.
Patriotism is not nationalism. It is about action and devotion.
Is patriotism misguided? When you defend a nation that is indefensible. There is no defending what Germany was doing in the Nazi era. There are other Fascist nations we can look at (Italy and Spain among them adopted GENUINE fascist political parties).
patriotism
–noun
devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.
Origin:
1720–30; patriot + -ism
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
—
pa·tri·ot·ism
n. Love of and devotion to one’s country.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
—
patriotism
noun
love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it; “they rode the same wave of popular patriotism”; “British nationalism was in the air and patriotic sentiments ran high”
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Patriotism
Patriotism
n.
[Cf. F. patriotisme.] Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one’s country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one’s country. —Berkley.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Ironic, isn’t it, that an American traitor named Mildred Gillars (who was known as “Axis Sally” although I think she broadcast under a different name) would take issue with the “my country right or wrong” argument to argue AGAINST America (while she was living in Germany).
Axis Sally, convicted traitor (WWII) audio sample
http://www.earthstation1.com/WWIIAudio/Axis_Sally_02c.wav
transcript:
“Well, I’m sorry girls but the time is really nearly up now and just in closing, girls, I like to ask you one question, on the level, straight shoulder to shoulder.”
“If you child behaves badly, do you agree with its misbehavior? Do you say to yourself, ‘My child, right or wrong, I don’t care what he does.’?”
“No you don’t.”
“You try to correct that child, you try to make him a better citizen.”
“Well, and what is a country? A country is only made up of people after all. Do you say, ‘My country right or wrong?’ No, girls. That’s false sentimentality and I do NOT praise(?) my country right or wrong.”
“I love America but I do NOT love Roosevelt and all of his kike boyfriends who have thrown us into the awful turmoil. And I’ll stick to my guns as long as I can tire(?) them, girls.”
“So you’ve not heard the last from me and I’m sure you must reject(?) your radio because you will want to hear more of what Germany is saying through the medium of an American girl.”
I believe that in pre-war Germany Hitler so closely identified himself with the nation that his minions were required to swear fealty to him personally, not to him as fuhrer. That is patriotism gone wrong when it is twisted to mean unquestioning loyalty to a person rather than a nation and its ideals.
Perhaps you could suggest that a better term for “bad” patriotism would be “false” patriotism. Not everyone who claims to be a patriot is one, necessarily.
Deutchland uber alles.
Like any emotion - like any abstraction - patriotism is bad insofar as it can be used to manipulate people to do evil. John Wilkes Booth claimed to be a patriot. In itself it is a laudable enough emotion - love of country, love of one’s mother, love of virtue itself - but ethics involves actions, not feelings. IMHO, of course.
You have to have a moral center of your own. You won’t be able to sort out what your patriotic duty is without clear moral principles of your own.
If service to your country obliges you to violate your moral principles, you can’t do it.
That doesn’t make you unpatriotic. If you love your country, you’re a patriot. If you’re willing to give your life to defend it, or give your life to set it right when its gone off the rails, you’re a patriot. The trick is knowing which is which.
Its important to remember that service to a given regime is not the same thing as service to country. Again, it takes a clear moral sense to be able to navigate the difference.
So, yes, patriotism rooted in morality is always a good thing. Detached from morality its like anything else detached from morality; it can lead to monstrous consequences.
For example, is patriotism doing whatever the government tells you? Is it loving the land of your birth? Is it loving the principles of your country's government? Is it defending your home country against anyone who would invade?
Depending on your definition, Nazis might have been patriotic and Washington's troops were not.
Many Germans were patriotic toward the Nazis. Doesn't that qualify? Or patriotism toward the soviet Union when it was killing millions of citizens.
No bad examples, just bad definitions. There is a reason that we have other words like “jingoism”, which is the word leftists mean when they say “patriotism”.
Sure there is. Jingoism, 1930’s germany.
When the definition of the country is changed, patriotism can be an awful thing. A citizen always has to have an ideal or belief that is superior to his country and gives him the moral and ethical knowledge to know whether he should support his country or not.
Hitler changed what it meant to be a German. It is very possible that somebody is going to change what it means to be an American. We don’t have to support the name because of the realities it once represented, if it no longer represents those realities. Or maybe we can claim the name and defend it (since history is on our side), but we’ll have to fight for it. That is, the government is not necessarily the nation.
Pronunciation: \ˈpā-trē-ə-ˌti-zəm, chiefly British ˈpa-\ Function: noun Date: circa 1726 : love for or devotion to one's country
Given that definition I would say there are plenty of good examples of patriotism being a bad thing. As far as "nationalism", Websters refers to it as "excessive patriotism".
I do not see excessive patriotism as being a bad thing provided the country that you are excessively patriotic about is morally good. In other words, plenty of Germans under Hitler were, according to definition, nationalists but I wouldn't find those better described as Nazi patriots instead of Nazi nationalists any less distasteful.
Talk about Che Guevara.
“Bad” patriotism comes from identifying patriotism with a political position or faction. Germans identifying Nazism with Germany attacked its true interests.
Patriotism which is based on hatred of mankind or other nations is bad. Self-interest requires cooperation with other nations just as it does for a person with other persons.
I don’t really see a significant difference between patriotism and nationalism since “fatherlandism” and nationalism are both based upon the same base, the nation (fatherland, motherland).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.