My Country, Right Or Wrong

As defenses of patriotism go, I tend to incline more toward Daniel Larison's rejoinder to George Kateb's essay than toward the response to Kateb offered by Walter Berns. Berns takes the view that "the decisive issue in an appropriate analysis of patriotism" is the sort of government that a patriot is asked to love. But I'm with Larison: It's a mistake to conflate a country and its regime, and a patriot who ceases to love his country because it happens to be governed by a despot is no patriot at all.

This doesn't mean that the patriot has to love the despot, or follow his commands. Love of country does not require absolute obedience to its government (indeed, it often requires the opposite), any more than love of family requires absolute obedience to one's parents, or absolute support for whatever one's children or siblings decide to do with themselves. This is what Chesterton meant with his famous dictum that "'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" (Though I would add that if you read them slightly differently - as statements of abiding love in bad times, rather than blanket endorsements of bad conduct - "my country, right or wrong" and "my mother, drunk or sober" are potentially admirable sentiments.) And it's a distinction that's missing from both Kateb's and Berns's essays, both of which seem to assume that the regime is the country, and vice versa, and that to love one is to love the other.

The only complicating factor occurs in a case like the United States, where the character of the regime and the character of the people are bound together so tightly that it's hard to imagine one without the other. The government-country distinction is easier to make in countries where regimes change willy-nilly, and while obviously our regime isn't identical to the one founded in 1789, our democratic temper - both institutional and cultural - has endured through the transition from a decentralized republic to a mass democracy with a sizable administrative state. So whereas France would still be France if the current Republic were dissolved and a monarchy or a dictatorship took its place, there's a sense in which imagining an America governed by an emperor or a military junta is a little like imagining a France whose inhabitants no longer speak French.

Comments

Patriotism isn't about the country or state, it's about the nation, a concept that gets treated as though it were a Penrose triangle these days.

Posted by turkey | March 15, 2008 5:00 PM

I'll agree with this. It just seems to me, though, that the interpretation of patriotism among the right has gone pretty meta: patriotism is displayed, more often than not, with displays of patriotism--singing "God Bless the U.S.A.", waving flags, etc. That seems a pretty hollow form of patriotism to me. Sure, I'm one of those liberals who tends to take a dim view of the Bush Administration's policies, but I find the whole "blame America first" argument against us to be silly. I'm not blaming America, I'm blaming George Bush and his pals.

I think that a lot of liberals are suspicious of patriotism as such because it has been used so often in recent years as merely a cudgel against people who don't buy into George Bush's hard-right views. So, the left's lack of patriotism ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I do love the idea of America, and our history is a proud one despite our failings. However, patriotism that is uninformed by our nation's true values (and a fair amount of common sense) is very easily manipulated. This is very prevalent and very scary, and it should be.

Posted by Lev | March 15, 2008 5:04 PM

I think ultimately patriotism reduces down to a sort of basic emotional loyalty to the society you grew up in, or the one you make your home now. Everyone probably has this feeling to some extent tor another, depending on how well treated they were by the society which brought them up.

However, this emotional loyalty, in the pure sense, has no cognitive content whatsoever. Obviously patriotism as a practical concept is heavily intertwined with whatever ideal you have for society and how you think it ought to look like. But to the extent the two can be separated out--that is, to the extent that patriotism is a intuitive feeling while politics involves ideology--then I would make a clear division between the two. So, in the instance of America being taken over by a military junta, I could still be a patriotic American while opposing the junta, and I could also be a patriotic American while supporting the junta (or perhaps I don't care either way). Patriotism just means you love the country, but you can love it in whatever way you want.

Posted by Korha | March 15, 2008 5:08 PM

Note that someone who says "My country, right or wrong" at least acknowledges that it *can* be wrong. That may seem a trivial point, but the problem with most superpatriots is that they can never make such an acknowledgement.

Posted by David T | March 15, 2008 9:18 PM

To that cri de coeur, the famous Republican Statesman Carl Schurz replied, "My country, right or wrong. If right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be put right."

He also wrote this about patriotism, which is, if anything, more timely today:

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.

Posted by Bo | March 15, 2008 10:21 PM

At the moment the US is governed by an Emperor, and not a competent one either!

Posted by The Doctor | March 16, 2008 12:22 AM

"Patriotism isn't about the country or state, it's about the nation, a concept that gets treated as though it were a Penrose triangle these days."

No, this is exactly wrong. Patriotism is about the country, the patria. If you love the nation, you're a nationalist. Of course, in many cases, those two things coincide.

Posted by Virgule | March 16, 2008 2:10 AM

This is an example of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman. What if the USA had a terrible government that caused us to make hard choices about whether we could patriotically love the country without loving the despot or oligarchy? Many despots have been popularly supported - look at Putin - so for how long could we love a country as an idea, while its people supported a regime we could not stand? Or what would it mean to love the idea of the country but not the reality? Ross, you are simply dodging the question by saying, well, if the USA had a government that despotic, it wouldn't really be the USA. That is the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.

Larison's voyage into the regrettable consequences of mass democracy, on the other hand, is an example of loving the idea of some other country, but not the one he finds himself actually existing in.

Posted by Ben | March 16, 2008 2:16 AM

Would you love a USA in which the ruling party could imprison people for the "crime" of threatening the ascendancy of that party?

Note: this is not a hypothetical question.

Posted by Mike | March 16, 2008 2:33 AM

"To understand your country, you must love it. To love it, you must, in a sense, accept it. To accept it as how it is, however is to betray it. To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that in it which shows what it might become. America - this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of the no into the yes, needs citizens who love it enough to reimagine and remake it."

-- Cornel West

That's the way I look at it.

Posted by Kevin | March 16, 2008 4:04 AM

In the Civil War era people were loyal to section or state. Modern-day American patriotism is relatively new.

What I find really more interesting about American patriotism is that because of immigration and because of racial history, an American might identify more the bonds with a recent immigrant of the same race, than with natives of a different race. I think Americans instinctively tend to divide humanity into races rather than into nations.

Posted by Danny | March 16, 2008 4:16 AM

What if the USA had a terrible government that caused us to make hard choices about whether we could patriotically love the country without loving the despot or oligarchy? Many despots have been popularly supported - look at Putin - so for how long could we love a country as an idea, while its people supported a regime we could not stand? Or what would it mean to love the idea of the country but not the reality?

I'm not sure that loving Russia, despite hating Putin, is a case of loving the idea of the country but not the reality. There are plenty of things to love about Russia that have nothing to do with its current government or its often very unfortunate (to put it mildly) political history. For one thing there's the entire artistic sphere--Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, etc. Russian and Soviet artists were/are sometimes oppressed by their government and sometimes implicated in its activities, but it seems perfectly reasonable to say "I love Russia" and be thinking of the culture that produced "War and Peace" rather than the culture that produced the Great Purge.

Similarly, as an American I can have complicated or negative feelings about central aspects of America's government and culture and still love America for real reasons--for what it actually is, not for some idea I have of what it might be in the future. There are critiques of America by Americans that are so broad and so negative that it's hard to imagine what might be left to like about the United States, but I think that kind of criticism is pretty rare.

I'm wary of conflating one's impression of the government with one's impression of the country, not least because that's what oppressive governments do when they persecute and deport their dissidents. "Don't like the government? Well, you're no patriot--go live somewhere else and don't bother trying to come back."

Posted by JB | March 16, 2008 7:49 AM

The argument for patriotism is incomplete without the understanding that, in its absence, we risk being made subject to the designs, values, and needs of others. Most Americans know nothing but the holiday from history that US political, military, and economic pre-eminence has afforded them for the last 60 years, for the last nearly 20 without even the notion of an equally powerful adversary. It's an open question whether and how soon we will summon real life reminders of an historically more familiar state of affairs - including the periodic wars whose relative human and financial costs make the Iraq expedition and occupation look like a minor police action.

Posted by CK MacLeod | March 16, 2008 2:26 PM

Ross,

I have to say I'm a bit flummoxed by your definition of patriotism. What does it mean to love your country, even if you disagree with/hate the people running it, the policies they pursue and the methods used to pursue those policies?

Would a German patriot in 1940 be required to support the regime or work to overthrow it? Would you be able to tell whether such a person was, in fact, a patriot by looking at his actions? Or are you saying that such actions are irrelevant to the determination of one's patriotism?

Is there some sort of longevity requirement for a state before it can be associated with the type of patriotism that you describe? Is it meaningful to speak of a patriot, in your terms, in the US in 1776? 1863? What about a Yugoslav patriot in the 1920s?

How does one express this type of patriotism? How can such expression be divorced from the implication that it is, in fact, support for the then-current regime, policies and methods?

Does the type of patriotism that you are describing have any sort of actual substantive meaning?

Posted by Joe | March 16, 2008 5:48 PM

Seems to me that ideas of patriotism become even more convoluted in the American context. Our nation forged a workable democratic republic that succeeded beyond all expectation and has symbolized for much of its history the potency of a system of government that (aspirationally but also increasingly) elevates ideals of liberty and equality. Thus, not only can we tease out distinctions between the country and the regime (as well as mull over the effects of tribal tendencies), but we can also distinguish between the promise of its fundamental ideals and its current commitment to them.

Posted by bab23 | March 16, 2008 5:57 PM

How delightful that Chesterton's actual words achieve your desired end: "My country, may she always be right. But, right or wrong, my country." Which, as I read it, is exactly the "admirable sentiment" of love in good times and bad that you propose in your second paragraph.

Posted by wj | March 16, 2008 6:51 PM

Sure, I'm one of those liberals who tends to take a dim view of the Bush Administration's policies, but I find the whole "blame America first" argument against us to be silly. I'm not blaming America, I'm blaming George Bush and his pals.

I don't blame George Bush & his pals, anymore than I would blame skunk for stinking, they are what they are. I blame the people who should have known better (The press, academia, the military & all the other elites) for no standing up to him, I blame the Democrats who lacked the intestinal fortitude to stand up to him and last but not least I blame the people who voted for him.

America voted Bush into Office twice, I blame America for every single dead child, woman and man in Iraq.

Posted by Don Quijote | March 16, 2008 6:52 PM

As a European, and therefore influenced by a certain political culture with its roots in 20th century history, I wonder when Americans will join us in believing that patriotism is a negative thing, out of which spring war and unquestioning obedience to authority, and nothing else.

Love of one's town, region and country is a good thing - and love of the planet, I would say, an even better thing. But patriotism invokes the sound of marching boots, ever onwards to the next unnecessary battle.

By the way I went to an American school until my fifteenth year, but even as a child I was somewhat aghast at the fact that we were expected to sing Marine songs in the same breath as Woody Guthrie. I don't know of any other democracy where children are so blatantly conditioned for life in a militarized society.

Posted by Hans B | March 16, 2008 8:55 PM

Mr. Hans B,

As you concede, the modern 'European' worldview that you believe in has its roots in a particular set of historical circumstances, and is arguably therefore no more objectively true or universally valid than the nationalistic worldview.

I do hate it when people generalize in this vein about 'the Europeans'. The Greeks, the Poles and the Irish are plenty nationalistic, even if their 'big brothers' in Paris, Bonn, or Brussels may dismiss nationalism as an outmoded anachronism. Small and weak countries cannot afford to embrace the fashionable post-nationalist nonsense- at least not if they don't want to end up being appendages of the English, the Russians or the Turks.

Posted by Hector | March 16, 2008 9:21 PM

Hector,

The inverse is also true, the nationalistic worldview is not objectively true or universally valid, and I do hate it when post-nationalism is dismissed as "fashionable" and "nonsense". It's not nonsense, it's a different point of view. There is no absolute truth in these matters because they are of our own invention. They are not inherently good or evil and we should judge them by whether they help or harm us. A better rebuttal to my post would have been to show how patriotism does more good than wrong. Personally I see it doing some good to a select class of politicians (and perhaps arms merchants) while substantially harming the public interest. The price tag of the Iraq war is only the latest example.

You are right to say that some European countries - not necessarily smaller ones, see Poland as opposed to Luxembourg - remain nationalistic, but you probably intentionally leave out the most prominent example of nationalism in Europe which is Serbia, the modern reminder to us all of why internationalism is better (from a peace and love point of view) than patriotism.

Posted by Hans B | March 17, 2008 10:04 AM

Mr. Hans B.,

My sympathies in the Balkan conflicts generally lie with Serbia, so your references to the Balkan conflicts are not likely to convince me. Bosnia and Kosovo are totally ahistorical entities that have no deep and abstract right to exist as nations. Historically, Bosnia was a part of either Serbia or Croatia. It never had a Muslim majority, does not have one today, and as late as the mid-20th century had a Serb plurality. The only reason that a Muslim plurality exists in Bosnia today was because the Croatian Fascists massacred 700,000 Serbs in World War II, which upset the demographic balance.

Now given the legacy of war and atrocity, there may be no better alternative than to allow Bosnia and Kosovo to be independent. Certainly horrid things were done in the Bosnian war. But in a perfect world, those territories would belong to the country that fought the Turks for a thousand years and then fought the Nazis.

Posted by Hector | March 17, 2008 10:18 AM

I happen to like the Serbs myself, at least, the many Serbs I am acquainted with personally. But unlike you, I believe that it is Serbian nationalism which caused the disintegration of Yugoslavia and, ultimately, the secession of Kosovo. The Serbs are certainly victims in this (though often also perpetrators) and the guilty parties are those like Slobodan Milosevic who fanned the flames of nationalism until this outcome became inevitable.

Also, many if not most nations were ahistorical entities at the moment of their creation, and their borders have often changed despite the concept of "historical entity". If the United States had stuck to the historical entity stuff, its flag would have thirteen stars. In any case the history card is a dangerous one indeed, opening the door to all kinds of repressive policies (like China's present actions in Tibet) or simultaneous claims to the same territory.

Posted by Mr Hector, | March 17, 2008 11:33 AM

Sorry I put your name where mine should have been: the above post was by Hans B and addressed to Mr Hector.

Posted by Hans B | March 17, 2008 11:35 AM

In so far as patriotism is primarily a tool used to bully people into joining the army, it's entirely fair to link it to the character of the regime.

(Hands up -- also a European)

Posted by william | March 17, 2008 12:00 PM

Patriotism is really nebulous, but generally refers to wanting the best for your country and especially believing it deserves to succeed. Wanting to drastically alter your country to suit your vision is less easy to call patriotic.

The transnational "European" mindset believes nationalism is the root of all war, and that if people stopped caring about their nation they would be less likely to go to war. Unfortunately, that mindset is also worthless in defeating tyranny. Poles never fought against the Nazis and Stalinists out of love of the planet. In America, we largely don't really view war as the greatest of evils, because we have not been in the position of agreeing that we deserved to lose a war. (Vietnam is still controversial)

By the way, I think love for any community that has power and could attack another would be disliked by transnationals. Were there extraterrestrials out there, I would expect them to denounce pride ones planet or species.

Posted by OmegaPaladin | March 17, 2008 6:42 PM

OmegaPaladin,

"that mindset is also worthless in defeating tyranny": you're wrong. One of the most underreported facts about WW II is the extent to which internationalists - mostly Communists - led the resistance movements against the nationalist Nazis. Members of my own family were send to Dachau for resistance acts, they weren't resisting Nazism for nationalist reasons at all. And later, former members of the resistance were very much supportive of the European ideal, which (certainly in the beginning) was to make war impossible by creating stronger economic bonds (and not at all to make people stop caring about their nation).

Tyranny, unlike resistance to tyranny, does require nationalism - and it is typical that Communists, when in power, had to betray their internationalist ideology and become nationalists in order to impose their dictatorships. Where there is no nationalism, there is no possibility to accuse, try and execute an opponent for the crime of "treason".

Finally, I don't think it is a question of agreeing that one deserves to lose a war, but of experiencing war. The US sent soldiers abroad but never saw its own homes and schools bombed, its own women raped, its own farmlands turned into cemetaries. At least, not in classic wars. You did have the Civil War, and I think it is quite notable that while Americans view war in general less negatively than Europeans do, you get quite upset when there is a civil war somewhere, or when the words "civil war" start to be used in an area under your responsibility.

I didn't think of this before, but it is perhaps this different historical experience - your Civil War as opposed to our national wars - which has led to differing perceptions of patriotism. In the US, patriotism keeps you together and prevents a return to the nightmare you have experienced. In Europe, patriotism has always divided us and led to wars between us.

The fact remains however that nationalist ideals are seldom if ever used to bring freedom, and often used to bring oppression.

Posted by Hans B | March 17, 2008 8:48 PM

It is indeed delightful that Chesterton's actual words achieve Ross's desired end, but wj gets them wrong, too. "My country, may she always be right. But, right or wrong, my country." was Decatur's (uncomplicated) line. Chesterton said that no patriot would think of saying such a thing except "in a desperate case." His point wasn't about whether the sentiment is wrong or right, but that it's not terribly noble.

The other famous version is by the old German-American Senator Carl Schurz: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

Posted by Andrew | March 19, 2008 3:34 AM