Patriotism: One Size Does Not Fit All

In her own view, the U.S. representative from Oakland acted from love of her country and its values when she cast the sole vote last month against granting President Bush authority to use military force in retaliation for the terrorist attacks. It wasn’t easy then, Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) said, and the current bombings surely haven’t made holding that position any easier. “But I say, when you disagree, you are demonstrating the beauty of this democratic system. And that’s the true American way.”

Others saw it differently. Some newspaper readers wrote scathing letters to the editor, saying real patriotism means solidarity. Demetrius Hatzeson of Rancho Palos Verdes called Lee a “disgrace to our nation.” Bruce McMurray of Berkeley labeled her a traitor.

Similarly, the many flags now waving from shiny luxury cars and dusty pickups alike hold a mix of meanings for the owners. For some, it means a chauvinistic military response, said Cecilia O’Leary, professor of history at Cal State Monterey Bay and the author of “To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism.”

To others, she said, “it represents an incredible sorrow over the loss of life, wanting to feel some sort of commonality. For some, particularly if they are Arab American, it means, ‘See, I am loyal. Don’t intern me like the Japanese.”’

For most Americans, the terrorist attacks and this week’s retaliatory strikes have brought to the surface raw feelings, some latent, some unfamiliar, for their country. In many ways, the new patriotism, historians say, is much like the old: ambivalent, paradoxical and fraught with tension. As in the past, its very intensity exposes the country’s delicate balance between individuality and community. The definition of who is and who is not a patriot is once again up for grabs.

No one can say where the new patriotism is headed, scholars said. Many see zealotry in security proposals that include racial profiling and moratoriums on student visas. Others see an opportunity to forge a new form of patriotism, one that could cement the bonds among an increasingly disparate, self-interested people, or one based on world citizenship that might inspire global corporations to embrace democratic values.

“Every generation remakes the meaning of patriotism,” O’Leary said. “Every generation has to say, ‘What do we want our loyalty to stand for?”’

Patriotism is as much an emotional experience as an intellectual conviction, and Americans are “amazingly patriotic people,” said Joyce Appleby, history professor at UCLA and author of “Inheriting the Revolution.” “Europeans feel themselves to be too sophisticated and worldly to be patriotic. Americans don’t mind being naive. It’s part of being an American,” she said. During the past 20 years, 96% to 97% of Americans have consistently told pollsters they feel proud of their country.

“One thing Americans are patriotic about is the respect for the individual. It’s kind of a conundrum. As a group, we become emotional at the thought of our American freedoms and the greatness of our country. At the same time, we see that unanimous feeling can put the individual at risk.”

Patriotism’s dark side injured many innocent people during World War I, for instance, when the government relied on a network of vigilantes to enforce loyalty, historians said. Volunteers in the American Protective League dragged people from their homes, forced them to kiss or fly flags or take loyalty oaths, O’Leary said. Some people were shot or jailed for private remarks that “cast contempt” on the Stars and Stripes, she added.

Patriotism also has historically served as a “benign umbrella for angry people,” Appleby said. Timothy McVeigh considered himself a patriot. Frank Roque, an Arizona machinist, was said to have shouted, “I stand for America all the way,” after his arrest in the drive-by shooting death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, who was one of dozens of Arabs, Muslims and Sikhs reportedly attacked since Sept. 11.

The Essence of Citizenship

On the other hand, patriotism is essential for citizenship, said Richard Rorty, Stanford University philosopher and the author of “Achieving Our Country.” “If you’re a citizen of a constitutional democracy, you can’t really function as a citizen unless you take pride in your country’s achievements and feel ashamed of its deficiencies and have some kind of identification with it,” he said.

In World War II, patriotic feelings were channeled into self-sacrifice and service, values still held up as an ideal in contemporary films such as “Saving Private Ryan.”

Even some pacifists in wartime can’t help but feel the pull to join in, wave flags and sing national anthems. Jane Addams, a pacifist and 1931 Nobel Prize winner, once wrote poignantly about feeling left out during World War I. “Indeed the pacifist in wartime ... constantly faces two dangers,” she wrote. “Strangely enough, he finds it possible to travel from the mire of self-pity straight to the barren hills of self-righteousness and to hate himself equally in both places.”

Patriotism is, by its nature, a communal experience, a bonding with others who feel the same way. It may be more difficult for some dissidents to feel the patriotic pull of shared emotion, Appleby said.

Todd Gitlin, a former Vietnam War protester, said he never saw himself as unpatriotic but had been so enraged by U.S. policies in that time that he was “viscerally unwilling to attach myself to patriotic symbols.” Since then, Gitlin, a New York University professor, author and an editor of the Web magazine https://www.opendemocracy.net, said his views have changed, partly because the nation’s foreign policies have become less militaristic. “I felt a deep shame at being an American. I don’t at all anymore. When I’m abroad, I’m frequently arguing against an automatic, uninformed, anti-Americanism, and arguing that America is a much more complicated place than they’ve taken the trouble to find out.”

A resident of New York, Gitlin felt his patriotism heat up Sept. 11. “I feel like a member of a congregation,” he said. The love he felt for the rescuers was visibly shared by others in ad hoc shrines around his neighborhood, he said. “To be in a crowd where everyone felt this is a beautiful thing.”

Patriotism for him, he said, is another word for “solidarity with fellow citizens, not some sort of attachment to abstract symbols, but a palpable experience and connection with my people.”

Fully aware of the various ways people can construe patriotism, Gitlin said he does not want to surrender to “the yahoos, racists or those who think that a purely military unilateral response is adequate.” In his view, patriotism should “require democratic participation in debate, not slavish devotion to a political leader or policy.”

Like George Orwell and others before him, Gitlin distinguishes between patriotism and nationalism, which he called “the affirmation that one’s country has certain prerogatives in the world which makes it superior to other countries.”

Even before Sept. 11, several philosophers and social critics were arguing for a new sort of broader patriotism, a “cosmopolitan universalism,” that looks beyond national interests for the good of humanity.

Loving one’s country ought to be like loving one’s children, said Martha Nussbaum, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago. “How can we be good parents to our children and love them, but recognize other people’s children are of equal worth? We have to realize other human beings have a right to a good life too.”

Until Sept. 11, she said Americans had focused too much on themselves rather than other countries. “We’re often quite ignorant. We don’t know what’s happening there and don’t devote enough of our resources there.” Now, she says she’s encouraged by the country’s willingness to be part of a worldwide network fighting terrorism. “I hope it turns into a form of patriotism,” she said. “Yes, we love America, but, yes, we want to be part of the larger world and take action in cooperation with others.”

Part of that patriotism, she believes, would be educational, urging undergraduates to learn foreign languages and to live and work in other countries. “One has to learn to have empathy with others whose lives are different from our own,” she said.

That view, though valid, is inadequate to bring out the best in people, said Jim Sleeper, who teaches a course called “Journalism, Liberalism and Democracy” at Yale University. “We really do wind up needing nations culturally, even when they seem outmoded economically and technologically,” he said. American nationalism is worth defending, he said, because the United States is an experiment in forging a national identity above and beyond “blood and soil,” race and class.

He said that while he had little use for stadium chants of “U-S-A!” he saw a real love in much of the recent flag waving. The terrorist attacks have shocked both liberals and conservatives into appreciating the preciousness of the country’s ideals, he said.

Some businesspeople whose interests cross national borders have been putting market sales above national interests, he said. “It shocked them into realizing they need America a lot. Not just the army. They need American values, the kind of values that allowed hundreds of foreign nationals to be working in the World Trade Center. We need a country to uphold those values for us to be good capitalists.”

Moving Past Self-Interest

Stanley Renshon, a political scientist at City University of New York and a psychoanalyst in private practice, sees the ongoing crisis as a rare opportunity for the country to move beyond self-interest and hyphenated politics.

“The fact that we have this surge of patriotism is terrific and great. But what we do with it, how our leaders channel it and how we continue it will be a crucial question for us.” After Bush’s call for a united response, he said many of his students started to think of themselves as Americans first, as opposed to, for instance, African Americans or Asian Americans.

Patriotic feeling could shift, the scholars said, if the government takes steps that bring shame to the nation. Or it could dissipate if nothing is done to nurture it.

That would be the “worst tragedy,” Renshon said. “This represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-cement the bonds of a majority of people with their country and their government.”

Bush needs to carefully delineate between bringing the country together and bringing it together at the expense of our connection with people who are not Americans, Renshon added. “One of the problems with ‘us’ is that it’s usually defined in part by ‘them.’ You have to have boundaries between the two,” he said. “But you can’t have boundaries that have spikes hanging out of them.”