For Memorial Day: on nationalism and patriotism
[NOTE: The following is a repeat of a previous post.]
The story “The Man Without a Country” used to be standard reading matter for seventh graders. In fact, it was the first “real” book – as opposed to those tedious Dick and Jane readers – that I was assigned in school.
It was exciting compared to Dick and Jane and the rest, since it dealt with an actual story with some actual drama to it. It struck me as terribly sad – and unfair, too – that Philip Nolan was forced to wander the world, exiled, for one moment of cursing the United States. “The Man Without a Country” was the sort of paean to patriotism that I would guess is rarely or never assigned nowadays to students – au contraire.
Patriotism has gotten a very bad name during the last few decades.
I think this feeling gathered more adherents (at least in this country) during the Vietnam era, and certainly the same is true lately. But patriotism and nationalism seem to have been rejected by a large segment of Europeans even earlier, as a result of the devastation both sentiments were thought to have wrought on that continent during WWI and WWII. Of course, WWII in Europe was a result mainly of German nationalism run amok, coupled with a lot more than nationalism itself. But the experience seemed to have given nationalism as a whole a very bad name.
Here’s author Thomas Mann on the subject, writing in 1947 in the introduction to the American edition of Herman Hesse’s Demian:
If today, when national individualism lies dying, when no single problem can any longer be solved from a purely national point of view, when everything connected with the “fatherland” has become stifling provincialism and no spirit that does not represent the European tradition as a whole any longer merits consideration…
A strong statement of the post-WWII idea of nationalism as a dangerous force, mercifully dead or dying, to be replaced (hopefully) by a pan-national (or, rather, anational) Europeanism. Mann was a German exile from his own country who had learned to his bitter regret the excesses to which a particular type of amoral nationalism can lead. His was an understandable and common response at the time, one that many decades later helped lead to the formation of the EU. The waning but still relatively strong nationalism of the US (as shown by the election of Donald Trump, for example) has been seen by those who agree with Mann as a relic of those dangerous days of nationalism gone mad without any curb of morality or consideration for others.
But the US is not Nazi Germany or anything like it, however much the far left may try to make that analogy. There’s a place for nationalism, and for love of country. Not a nationalism that ignores or tramples on human rights (like that of the Nazis), but one that embraces and strives for and tries to preserve them here and abroad, keeping in mind that – human nature being what it is – no nation on earth can be perfect or anywhere near perfect. The US is far from perfect, but has been a good country nevertheless, always working to be better, with a nationalism that traditionally recognizes that sometimes liberty must be fought for, and that the struggle involves some sacrifice.
So, I’ll echo the verse that figured so prominently in “The Man Without a Country,” and say (corny, but true): …this is my own, my native land. And I’ll also echo Francis Scott Key and add: …the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. Those lines from the anthem express a hope that has been fading. But even though things had been looking dim for both liberty and courage in recent years, it is not over.
When I looked back at my original, longer version of this post, I saw that it was written on Memorial Day in 2005, not that long after I began blogging. Seems longer ago than that. This is another portion of what I wrote then, and although I was describing my post-9/11 thoughts, I think it’s especially appropriate now [updates in brackets]:
I’d known the words to [our national anthem] for [over sixty years], and even had to learn about Francis Scott Key and the circumstances under which he wrote them. But I never really thought much about those words. It was just a song that was difficult to sing, and not as pretty as America the Beautiful or God Bless America (the latter, in those very un-PC days of my youth, we used to sing as we marched out of assembly).
The whole first stanza of the national anthem is a protracted version of a question: does the American flag still wave over the fort? Has the US been successful in the battle? As a child, the answer seemed to me to have been a foregone conclusion – of course it waved, of course the US prevailed in the battle; how could it be otherwise? America rah-rah. America always was the winner. Even our withdrawal from Vietnam, so many years later, seemed to me to be an act of choice. Our very existence as a nation had never for a moment felt threatened.
The only threat I’d ever faced to this country was the nightmarish threat of nuclear war. But that seemed more a threat to the entire planet, to humankind itself, rather than to this country specifically. And so I never really heard or felt the vulnerability and fear expressed in Key’s question, which he asked during the War of 1812, so shortly after the birth of the country itself: does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
But now I heard his doubt, and I felt it, too. I saw quite suddenly that there was no “given” in the existence of this country – its continuance, and its preciousness, began to seem to me to be as important and as precarious as they must have seemed to Key during that night in 1814.
And then other memorized writings came to me as well–the Gettysburg Address, whose words those crabby old teachers of mine had made us memorize in their entirety: and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Here it was again, the sense of the nation as an experiment in democracy and freedom, and inherently special but vulnerable to destruction, an idea I had never until that moment grasped. But now I did, on a visceral level.
On this Memorial Day I’d like to remember in particular the thirteen service members who recently died in the operation to prevent madmen from launching nuclear weapons in search of a mythical imam’s return. RIP, all, and may God comfort their families.
I hope in years to come we will still be the land of the free and the home of the brave. It’s not guaranteed.
Claire Lehmann has argued that nationalism is the antidote to racism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpmoAnvnbTw
I think it is significant that Otto Frank served in the Kaiser’s army in the First World War, and indeed received a field promotion to lieutenant. Whereas under the rule of the Third Reich, he and his family were arrested and thrown into concentration camps.
The excesses of nationalism can be devastating, as the example of the First World War shows, but the effects of subnational tribalism can be worse
I find it sad that we are six weeks away from the 250th anniversary of the United States and I have heard nothing celebrating that.
As I recall in 1976 the 200th anniversary was hard to escape.
It seems half the country hates America and the other half knows they will be called out as white supremacists or Nazis for waving the flag.
O say can you see … ?
You are exactly on target. Amoral, a lack of morality, is the sickness. Nationalism itself is to be desired.
The comment by David Foster abscribes to nationalism – the excesses of nationalism – that which in actuality is the infection of amorality. It is the lacking, not the excess which is the problem.
John Adams spoke of this in his address to the Massachusetts militia.
‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. ‘
Here, by religion Adams means a code of conduct and strict adherence thereto. Exercising rights while ignoring responsibilities is a succinct summation of the cause of the troubles we see.
Thank you for reminding us of the significance of this day and explaining important points in history that relate to it.
I should think it self evident that each society has unique characteristics. If Nationalism or Patriotism mean recognition of this, and devotion to the uniqueness of one’s own, then it seems to be a natural reaction.
The critics always assume, and project, an extreme that is not valid in most cases.
I don’t believe that I have ever heard those who postulate for pan nationalism, or a world community define their limits. Are we to accept that all societies are equally worthy or moral?
So many current critics of America compare our society to some fantasy that they have imagined, but cannot define.
My time working in Latin America turned me from a progressive of the left to an evil right-winger. 🙂 The so-called progressive narrative I imbibed about Latin America did not correlate with what I saw on the ground there. Turned me into a flag-waver.
1. Progressive narrative: The US is to blame for Latin America’s backwardness. My intuitive reaction was that for centuries the hacienda owners had a monopoly on investment capital. They had a comfortable enough life on their haciendas without greedy investment to make themselves even richer. Gringos were greedy—they were not. Though I met such an owner in Ecuador, a former ambassador to Franco’s Spain, who worked hard on his farm, helping muck about in cattle stalls.
2. Progressive narrative: Socialism is good for Latin America. State-owned telephone companies were a disaster, such as paying $1000 for the installation of a landline—and waiting a year to get it installed. (Argentina). Similar w Venezuela. State-owned oil companies, with the (then) exception of PDVSA (Venezuela), were poorly run. My experience in oil drilling engineering services.
3.Progressive narrative: Left wing guerrillas have the support of the people. I worked in Bolivia and with Bolivians in Argentina. Many of the Bolivians I worked with viewed Argentines as being racist chauvinists. Which was the primary reason Che’s Bolivian Revo failed. I was there over a decade after Che was killed.
I worked in Guatemala in a war zone. Rig workers told of guerrillas killing some in their hometown for being suspected orejas.—informants. Which could have been done by the military government. But I was also told of land grabs in the area by high-up military (which I later read about in NACLA), which makes me think they knew who really did the killings. The rig workers just wanted to be left alone, in peace. Near the Quetzal Biotopo refuge, I met the university rector largely responsible for its establishment. Several months after I met him, guerrillas killed him. BTW, jokes about General-President Lucas were quite common. I met some relatives of General-President Lucas in his hometown.
4. Progressive narrative: Marxists/Communists in Latin America are nationalists, not Soviet puppets. My take: not necessarily puppets, but many jumped into the arms of the Soviets—the anti-yanquis. In a coffee house in Bogota, I had a conversation with a Colombian communist who defended the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Soviet invasion was “gentle,” I was told. I read of the Sandinista support of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—joint proclamation in both Pravda and Barricada in March 1980. Can’t blame Ronnie for that. Ditto jailing a Pole in early 1982 upon entering Nicaragua with a valid visa—on suspicion of belonging to Solidarity. After 5 months imprisonment, he was released. (Robert Czarkowaki—De Polonia a Nicaragua)
While the progressive narrative implied that imperialist Americans were resented in Latin America, I found my nationality to be a great asset. Speaking Spanish helped, no doubt.
After seeing the inefficiency and corruption of governments in Latin America, I gained an appreciation for government as practiced in the US.
We need patriotism & love of country, of a particular place.
To be “somewhere” folk, even if the somewhere is pretty big.
Few of those who want to replace love of country with some pan-nationalism are actually willing to live in any of the poor countries of the world.
Freedom is worth fighting for, killing for, dying for. Those who died for America are American heroes. Hero. Positive masculinity, fighting and risking dying.
Lots of current analysis looks at Iraq as a failure, somehow. But America allowed them to develop their own Arab Shia Muslim democracy, with voting, and some amount of human rights, tho many might think it’s not enough of human rights. Note that “liberal (=human rights?) democracy” is not the only kind of democracy, and “liberal” today means Woke more than classical liberal.
We don’t celebrate “Memorial” Day, but on 8 May there was Victory in Europe day, which Slovakia this year removed as state holiday, but many businesses continued it.
Holidays & memories.
Tom G: “We need patriotism & love of country, of a particular place.
To be “somewhere” folk, even if the somewhere is pretty big.”
Yes, that’s what it’s all about. Consider that Germany and Italy were not united until the 19th century. It may not be a coincidence that they were the poster boys for the “bad” nationalism of the 20th century when it meant the concentration of power in remote central governments away from local control and input.
But today nationalism means taking back power from even more remote global elites, whose interests have nothing in common with those of the people of our country. Or *any* country. That is why they try to tar it with the “fascist/nazi” brush.
Very interesting gringo
Of course my background has been made clear i could never wear a che shirt our family had a small farm in a village along the coast which was confiscated by the regime on another side of my family they owned a warehouse that was also taken the farm was effectively destroyed as the communists often do, as they did to the great hershey sugar refinery
The most basic principles i learned in elementary school in miami before the constructivists took hold
There were some good teachers in middle and high school well the private ones on scholarship
As i advanced into university i realized how many professors were not of a similar mindset to be charitable
The demonstrations in baghdad after october 7th left a bad taste in my mouth
“Patriotism has gotten a very bad name during the last few decades.”
Yes, it has. In my view, because of the globalists and Greenies, two human subsets riddled with delusions of righteousness and superiority. I grew up in the 1950s, when America numbered 150 million citizens, mostly of white European stock, not the polypigmented, multi-ethnic, multi-culti morass of 330 million plus in which we reside today.
Human history is exceedingly clear that one prefers to dwell among fellows who are of identical cultural and religious beliefs. See Northern Ireland as an example; Protestant v. Catholic; today those differences are resolved and the “right” to abort is part of the now non-Catholic 100% secular Irish constitution. And Ireland is unified!
Memorial Day was first conceived as Decoration Day, to honor the Soldiers of the Union who died in battle against the Confederacy.
If putting America first is Nationalism, then I’m a nationalist.
Modern “Progressive” educational ideology seems to have had an inverse result as far as America being an exceptional country goes, an unintended consequence (at least I hope it was unintended).
The US has had a good run, maybe it’s over. All systems of governance in.the end are subsumed. They all have a fatal flaw, all of them are run by people.
Arlington national cemetery is located on the front yard of Robt. E Lee’s family mansion, why?
Cicero seems to disfavor The First Ammendment of The Constitution.
Sad.
“Freedom is worth fighting for, killing for, dying for. Those who died for America are American heroes. Hero. Positive masculinity, fighting and risking dying.”
Absolutely. “Greater love hath no man than this…”
Along with venerating those who sacrificed their lives and those who fought and suffered life-long disabilities… we must also celebrate the values that our fallen heroes fought to preserve. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This is the best expressed, concise, and most comprehensive definition of Western Civilization that I have ever come across–this is beautiful intellectual and rhetorical work.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH5l0Jk5idU&t=30s
Arlington national cemetery is located on the front yard of Robt. E Lee’s family mansion, why?
Apparently the gentlemen in charge of interring the dead Yankees ,thought it would be funny to bury them on Lee’s property. He had inherited the property through his wife’s family the Custis’s I think. He obviously never recovered his stolen property. But I suspect he honored the Union dead there.
Lee’s property wasn’t stolen.
What happened after the end of the American Civil War was tragic in many ways but unlike what usually happens to the vanquished in most civil wars.
Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are not funny places.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and a separate country from the Republic of Ireland. So, I wouldn’t say that Ireland is unified.
In a nutshell:
“Globalism Seeks To Kill The Nation-State”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/globalism-seeks-kill-nation-state
Europe and the anti-Trump Anglosphere are totally “on board”…
…while the world’s totalitarianism scoundrels and international orgs. are rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation.
And why shouldn’t they?
Only Trump stands in their way…and the Democratic Party (along with those it inspires) are doing their very best to clear out that stubborn anachronistic roadblock.
(Though first, the Zionist Entity will likely have to be dealt with…)
Though first, the Zionist Entity will likely have to be dealt with…)
Clarify please .
Keith and om are correct!
Merely a question of priorities and practicalities…
IOW Satan Jr. would seem an easier goal than Satan Sr. (but it’s true that these things aren’t carved in stone)….
The Twelver Commandments?
Timmy hiding in that damned well with his missiles and his dust.
It doesn’t matter what is in the hole with.me if they fight they fight.
David Foster
I’m not sure this has been overlooked, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere.
WRT Otto Frank’s commission: The guy who did it had to be confident that putting a Jew into officers country wasn’t going to cause trouble. He would be sure because it, presumably, had been done before without trouble. There’s be no enlisted types muttering, “do I really have to do this crap or is it another pissing contest from the O Club?”
Putting a Jew there would not disrupt good order and discipline. Which means it had been done before.
Maybe a Jew wouldn’t have been able to get into officer training in the usual ways, whatever those were in pre WW I Germany. Don’t know but it’s possible. But….this field commission tells us something about the position of Jews in society (and social class was part of a commissioned officer’s background) and, as I say, shows a record of not causing trouble.
When the Nazis rescinded Jewish soldiers’ awards, their gentile buddies complained. To no end, but it means something.
Twenty years later,,,,,,