The Patriot’s Act
“It is certainly rather a curious thing, that after more than eighty years of national existence, we should have hit upon no better way of celebrating the birth-day of our nation than by a clumsy imitation of the old Roman saturnalia,” a New York Times editorial complained in 1859. “By one of the most whimsical freaks imaginable,” griped the editors, “the burning of powder has become the one significant ceremony of the national patriotism in keeping its highest Saint’s day.”
What the New York Times proposed instead of joyous fireworks and trivial speeches was a somber ceremony, the “stateliest holiday ever known to any people,”one that would serve as a “powerful agency in behalf of the civilization of America” and promote “the crystallization of the American nationality.” “That we need the influences of such days so kept is sadly plain. The tendency of our people in late years has been centrifugal rather than centripetal.”
I bring this up for two reasons. First, it should remind those who grumble about the disuniting of America that such complaints are hardly new and that those who are nostalgic for days of national unity had better be sure they know what they’re talking about. Second, just because such complaints are hardly new hardly means they’re wrong. Just two years after the Times bemoaned the “centrifugal” tendencies of the American people, the American nation did, in fact, rip apart.
Of course, no one thinks America is on the verge of a civil war, the shrieking from partisans notwithstanding. America may be evenly -- even passionately -- divided, but it is not so deeply divided that we will be taking up arms against each other any time soon.
Nevertheless, patriotism and the way we celebrate it on the Fourth of July is something worth considering anew. For a significant chunk of the 20th century, the left reviled patriotism and liberals took it for granted. From the 1930s to the 1960s, leftists bought into a hodgepodge of Marxist, radical and just plain anti-American doctrines, which held that patriotism was no different than nationalism, racism, jingoism, know-nothingism and other distractions from international class consciousness. And liberals seemed to think of patriotism the way Episcopalians think about religion -- it’s a good thing, but don’t talk about it much because it’s also slightly embarrassing. After all, if one is truly cosmopolitan, and therefore a citizen of the world, loyalty to any one place seems inappropriate.
Meanwhile -- sometimes out of angry reaction to America-bashing, sometimes out of political opportunism and sometimes simply because no one else would bother -- conservatives claimed patriotism as the exclusive province of the right. In our defense, we conservatives believe in, well, conserving. And if upholding the goodness and nobility of the American experiment when others will not isn’t conservative, I don’t know what is.
The high-water mark of this polarization was probably the 1988 presidential election, in which the senior George Bush wrapped himself in the flag, while Michael Dukakis seemed to consider patriotism a lower priority than agricultural subsidies. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton recognized that patriotic people take voting a bit more seriously than unpatriotic people and focused his campaign accordingly. Today’s candidates assert their patriotism daily, with John F. Kerry insisting that if you question his votes, his past positions or perhaps even his haircut you are questioning his patriotism.
Although I think it’s absurd to argue that questioning a candidate’s positions is the same as questioning his patriotism, it’s all to the good that Democrats are fighting Republicans for the mantle of who’s more patriotic. Indeed, something similar has been taking place on the academic left. Even the left’s dashboard saint, Ralph Nader, can speak eloquently about the grand patriotic tradition of citizen activism that stems from the American founding.
What the left is slowly discovering -- or rediscovering -- is the difference between patriotism and nationalism. A nationalist gives his undying devotion to a people. A patriot gives his devotion to an ideal. “ ‘My country right or wrong’ is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case,” the essayist G.K. Chesterton observed. “It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ ” Although we can debate how much of an atrocity the abuses at Abu Ghraib were, one reassuring sign was the near unanimity of opinion here at home that such acts were “un-American.” In the past, the left was so contemptuous of what America stood for that the idea of something being un-American would have been considered a badge of honor.
The change is a healthy sign. If we reject the notion that America represents an ideal, we reject the notion that we should strive for that ideal. Leftists delude themselves if they believe that “internationalism,” the United Nations or any other version of what Alfred Tennyson called “the Parliament of Man” can substitute for love of country. Indeed, the tittering one hears from the cosmopolitans about the innate goodness of America misses an important point: If we do not teach that Americans are good, we also diminish or demean the belief that we should be good because we are Americans.
Without the ideal, there is no shame in failing to attain it. People will love their country because it is natural to do so. The trick is to hone how we show that love. Good parents love their children unconditionally, as good patriots love their country. But neither parent nor patriot is forced by affection to support every bad decision that loved ones make or to withhold expressions of disappointment.
I am not, like the New York Times of 1859, opposed to hot dogs and fireworks. But I think its editors had a point in pushing for a celebration that acknowledged the sanctity of Independence Day. I say let the kids have their fun but make sure they understand that we are not celebrating for celebration’s sake. We are celebrating the birthday of a great gift to mankind. The rest of the year can be for debating how we can live by the ideals enshrined in our nation’s founding, but the Fourth of July is for teaching kids -- and adults -- to love their country. After all, patriots are not born; they are made.
