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In practice the simple concept of patriotism can lead to the idea,
"I love and support my country, right or wrong".
Patriotism is convenient for the governments and political parties that run
nations, don't just accept it without giving it some critical thought, and
vote smart.
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Reading the definition of patriotism above you might at first wonder how
anyone could argue that patriotism is not a good thing. The
problem is not with the love for one's own country, it is the
implied exclusion of other countries from that love.
If one holds ones own country to be more important, superior, and more
to be loved than other countries then doesn't it follow that other countries,
and probably their citizens, are inferior?
The error of patriotism is not so much to do with inclusion (one's own country) but with exclusion (every other country). Another problem associated with patriotism is to do with the definition of one's country; that is, the land or the nation? It has often been said that in the modern world we live in a global village; in this world we must learn, not just to love our own land and nation, but to love the whole world. Why should your or my love stop at the border of our nation? On the other hand, isn't it much more natural that our love be mainly for that part of our nation with which we are familiar? For example, I have not yet visited north Queensland (part of my nation, Australia); can I, in any meaningful sense, love north Queensland as much as I love the Flinders Ranges, with which I have been familiar since childhood; and is it likely that I can love north Queensland more than any other part of the world that I have never visited?
The patriotic concept of placing one's own nation before other nations is very artificial. Obviously it must have developed after the rise of nation states; before then people's loyalties would have been for the family, tribe, village, or some other local societal group. Patriotism – directed specifically to the nation – must be one of the greatest successes of propaganda in history. Patriotism, if it is interpreted as being loyalty to one's national government, can mean "I will support my country, right or wrong". If the government of one's nation is corrupt and immoral, an honourable citizen cannot and must not support it.
Socrates is recorded as saying "I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the World." I would go even further; we should think of ourselves not just as being a citizen of the world, but being a part of the biosphere: that is, a part of all life on earth. |
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The roots of patriotismPatriotism as the love of one's nation state can go back no further than the concept of the nation state. As implied by the quote from Socrates above ("I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the World."), the ancient Greeks used to generally have feelings of patriotic duty toward their city state, Athens, or Sparta, or Corinth, say, rather than for Greece. In pre-civilisation societies people would have had patriotic sentiments for their family, extended family, or tribe.Even in post-Roman feudal Europe, people would perhaps have felt more strongly connected to their city or village rather than to their nation. Their village, to a large extent, would have been their world. In the modern world many people feel stronger connection to their religious group, their ethnic minority group, or even their motorcycle club than they do to their nation-state. Over the past several centuries, governments, especially I suspect Western governments, have been very successful in directing feelings of patriotism away from the land, the group or the tribe, toward the nation-state. |
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I suppose the ultimate patriotic act is to fight and die in a war for one's
country (the distinction between
land or nation is important here).
To do so with justification one should be thoroughly convinced that one's
country is better than other countries.
Where is the evidence that either Australia,
or the USA, for example, are better than many other
countries?
There are times when fighting and risking death for one's country and what it stands for is probably justified. I suspect that fighting against Nazism and Japanese Imperialism was justified in the Second World War. But what moral high ground does Australia (or the USA) hold in 2006? If you are considering fighting for a cause, I suggest that you fight for principals that are worthy, things like freedom, justice, fairness to others, generosity. To fight for a country, just because it is the one you live in, and ignoring its failings, would, in my view, be foolish in the extreme. |
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Our government, and that of the USA, seems to equate patriotism to national
loyalty and a willingness to place our nation before all others. They seem
to hold this sort of 'patriotism' as a great virtue in a citizen.
Is love of one's own nation to the exclusion of others a virtue?
Some people in Germany during World War Two concealed Jews from the authorities. They were placing their own beliefs of right and wrong before the law of the land, which said that they should report all Jews to the government. Were they wrong to do so? I suspect that most people would say that they did right because it was the government's policy of exterminating Jews that was wrong. It seems then that we do not owe loyalty to our nation – as represented by the government of our nation – if that government is behaving immorally. Or would it be more accurate to say that a patriot, in a nation whose government was behaving immorally, would be morally obliged to work against that government? ("The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing": Edmund Burke.) What could any government do that is more immoral than to involve its nation and its people in an unjust, unnecessary, counterproductive, illegal, futile, and terribly destructive war that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of millions of others? Especially when the people that the government supposedly represented overwhelmingly did not want their country involved in the war. Of course I am referring to Australia and the Iraq war that started in 2003. |
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The governments of Australia and the USA in 2005 are morally corrupt,
similarly to the way that the government of Germany in the 1930s was corrupt.
They have an unsustainable, short sighted, selfish outlook; they
care much more for the wealthy among their citizens than for the
poor, and they are dominated by the corporations that fund their
political campaigns.
Perhaps most importantly, they lack any standing as responsible
members of the community of nations.
Their faults have most strongly been demonstrated in their recent decisions regarding the Kyoto accord and the invasion of Iraq. The citizens of Australia and the USA must learn to adopt a more global outlook if the corruption is to be reversed. |
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