For Memorial Day: on nationalism and patriotism
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.
Patriotism has gotten a bad name during the last few decades.
I think part of this feeling began (at least in this country) with the Vietnam era and the influence of the left. 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 seen to have wrought on that continent during WWI and WWII. Of course, WWII in Europe was a result mainly of German nationalism run amok, but it 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 unbridled and 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 is seen by those who agree with him 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 it is a very good country nevertheless, always working to be better, with a nationalism that 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.
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of an older post.]
Nationalism and patriotism, though often confused and equated, are not the same thing.
Nationalism defines geographical identity. Patriotism, what cultural qualities we value.
I disagree with those definitions, GB. In my view patriotism is first and foremost about place and is the natural human love of one’s own native land, whereas nationalism is a more abstract thing.
But anyway: I find in conversations with liberals that many of them have become incapable of differentiating between healthy and unhealthy patriotism and/or nationalism. They tend to view both of them as bad by definition, not as a function of degree. This is not good.
Patriotism is love of country. It’s like hearing a friend on Mothers Day saying, “I have the best mom in the world.” Few of us would see that as a put down of our own mothers. Rather we would wish that everyone could say that about their mother. Patriotism arises out of bonds formed and traditions shared, without we can never be fully human.
The worst kinds of nationalism strives to replace these bonds by demanding loyalty and obedience to the leader. People like Hitler and Mao tried to reach the young and turn them against their parents’ values.
I recently read somewhere that Angela Merkel decried the rising nationalism in Germany. “Nationalism,” especially in Germany, does evoke images of Nazi Germany. The problem is… the nationalism that Nazi Germany promoted was of an “purity” of ethnicity — no one but those of the “right bloodline” could be s member. But patriotism has been conflated with that sort of nationalism, and there’s nothing wrong with patriotism. If you are patriotic, you are proud of your country. And there is a sense that anyone can join the “club,” as it were: regardless of where you are from, as long as you want to be an American, and become a part of the American fabric, you can.
Neo, You write that “The Man Without a Country” is “an actual story with some actual drama to it.” I am no exactly certain what you mean by those words. Edward Everett Hale published this story in The Atlantic magazine in 1863, at the height of the Civil War as an allegory to bolster the Union cause. It is a truly wonderful and wrenching story, but a story nonetheless, and Hale was proud of the authentic, almost documentary sense that he achieved by his historical research and his use of real people and actual events in writing it. I do love the points about American nationalism and patriotism that you make in this post.
Ralph Kinney Bennett:
I meant as opposed to the yawn-inducing “stories” in the Dick and Jane readers.
Look. See Spot run.
I remember seeing a movie version when I was young and it affected me the same way neo. I thought how sad it was.
Mac:
“I find in conversations with liberals that many of them have become incapable of differentiating between healthy and unhealthy patriotism and/or nationalism. They tend to view both of them as bad by definition, not as a function of degree. This is not good.”
I can empathize. I thought like that growing up. I became patriotic by living Team America as a soldier.
I use patriotism and nationalism interchangeably. Ethnic nationalism is different.
That story was written by a son of Nathan Hale, my ancestor. There is a statue to him and info about the story. Very sobering story.
Tribalism is an innate, universal facet of the human soul. “You’ve got to serve somebody” is as true as any words ever spoken. The left attacks patriotism because it is poison to their aim of having everybody do it their way.
European “nation states” are geo-areas with predominate ethnic national majority. Neither Roma (Gypsies) nor Turks will ever be “Germans”, even if they become citizens of Germany.
There IS a German “race” ethnic group, different than the French or Italian or Swedish or Slovak.
After 25 years in Slovakia, I could become a Slovak citizen, but I’ll never be “Slovak”. But my kids are.
This is one aspect of tribalism.
My kids are also American citizens, and my wife could become one if we lived in the US. Everybody in the world could, in fact, become “American” were the various groups to agree (imagine Canadians wanting Canada to be split into states that join the USA. Easier than imagining US folk accepting Mexican states — but clearly “possible” in a certain not to happen kind of way.)
Funny sad how Democrats don’t think “America is the Greatest County” — but won’t say what country is, nor do they leave in large numbers.
American ideals are great, and by most overall measures, America has been, and still is, the greatest country on earth AND the greatest country in history.
Thanks to Founding Father giants, upon whose shoulders the Republic was founded and on the Christian-Capitalist culture that nurtured and sustained it.
Democrats are creating a “PC tribe” which demonizes “the Other” in just the way they claim, mostly falsely, that non-PC folk are demonizing some group or other.
Tom G.
In Germany, this tribalism was strengthened by the Westphalian Peace, which allowed rulers to determine the religion of their states. Thus, for example, Bavaria was Catholic, northern German states and Hesse were Protestant. Members of other religions were seen as other, which made it extremely hard for the Jews to be accepted as normal citizens anywhere. This was reinforced by traditional clothing (trachten) which distinguished one town’s inhabitants from those elsewhere.
My husband is from a Catholic village in the Rhineland. When he was a kid, the Catholics didn’t play with the Protestants even though they were in the same tiny school.
Not far from where I live, there are two neighboring villages, one Catholic, one Protestant. My neighbor told me that an employee of his wouldn’t attend the funeral of a long.time co-worker because it was being held in the wrong church in the wrong village.
There are still strong remnants of this tribalism in small villages, especially in rural areas, although young people are mixing more and more. Heck, Thai food seems to be the latest fad if I can judge by the shelf space at my supermarket.
expat.
In the US, we have to manufacture tribalism. “I hate everybody except whoever’s playing Ohio State.”
Nationalism is strong identification with people who live in a common geographical area, with a sense that ‘we’re all in this together’, at some level. Racism is primary identification with people who share one’s skin color, or, more broadly-defined, people who share one’s ethnicity.
WWI was largely a war driven by runaway nationalism; WWII, driven more by racism. The Nazis were more racist than nationalist: a German was supposed to identify with a German-speaking Czech of common ethnicity but not with a German-speaking Jew whose family had lived in the same village for generations.
I love the comments here. WWII may have been started by the hegemonic nationalisms of Germany and Japan, but it was also won by nationalism, not only American (nor only Anglospheric). Nationalism was/is hated because it interferes with internationalism (transnationalism, universalism) considered necessary by the left to bring in socialism and communism. That was the three-card monty being quietly played in the background in the patriotism and nationalism discussions this past 100 years. Blame nationalism per se for the wars, and convince people that this is something they must rise above to become more morally exalted.
As others note above “nationalism” is much more something of Blood and Soil in Europe and most of the world. In the British former colonies, especially America, it refers more to ideas, values, goals.