Memorial Day: on patriotism
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of an older post.]
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 to read in school.
The plot 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.
I remember reading the story “The Man Without a Country” in the 7th grade, I thought it was a bit harsh however a person needed to feel that way to understand the point of the story. I was up early this morning putting my American Flag up, enjoying the early morning cool air and listening to the birds. Somehow or another our younger generation, three families with our kids ranging from 39 to 48 years old share our same love of our country and they are trying to pass that on to their children.
If we are to move on through this current phase of disliking our flag and nation and that is a big if we need to find a way to share the feeling that the United States of America is an incredible, great, unique nation with a powerful history or righting wrongs and allowing individual freedom like no other nation, ever.
Of course part of heritage is the willingness to go to war and make sacrifices including personal death to keep us going. I have trouble putting all of this stuff together, the stuff I know and the stuff I feel. Recently I discovered more personal family history linking us to early English settlers who came to Concord Massachusetts in 1648, the first generation in the US and one of the first sons fought in the Narragansett War in 1675 when every able bodied man between 17 and 49 was required to have his own weapons and report for duty when called up, that was New England at that time.
I always knew I was a son of the South with family here before 1750 and most living in states where the men fought for the South in the Civil War, except for one great-granddad in Tennessee, a border state where he was a Baptist preacher and become a cavalry captain.
Another great-granddad, Sutherland from Arkansas was an infantry man who never smiled again when he returned from the war. It seems as if the only war and police actions up to now some family member was missing from was the Spanish American war.
So today, Memorial Day I remember my dad who along with my uncles served during WWII hugging me in 1966 when I went into the service and I missed by one week being in the group that went to Viet Nam from my advanced school. My parents were proud of me and scared to death but they knew that being in the service, like my older brother in the 1950’s was what we did, no question about it, that’s what we did.
The old WWII and Korean war men in my family are now gone, some coming back kind of shot up and worn out but good family men. The most recent I have visited with, step nephew who was a Stryker driver in Iraq and Nieces husband who has done numerous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq have been frustrated with the military but think things are probably getting bit better.
I understand there a people who don’t know many who have served and I feel honored to live in an area where a good deal of my friends are Vets so when I put my flag out in the morning I know there are lots of friends and family who feel, in their bones the heritage of paying the price. Sorry for the sappy but I am glad we can speak our mind and thank all of you, Neo and those who comment who freely share their opinions.
“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.” neo
Yoram Hazony is an Israeli philosopher, Biblical scholar and political theorist. In 2010, his article “Israel Through European Eyes” first shed light for me on the motivation for Western Europe’s animosity toward the very existence of Israel.
In 1795, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote his manifesto entitled, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”
Hazony argues it to lie at the heart of the Western Left’s hostility to the nation state;
After WWII, Kant’s POV became formalized into the theory of “Trans-nationalism” which is…
Trans-nationalism is a collectivist POV and naturally aligns with Marxism, multi-culturalism, post modernism, et al on the Left.
I strongly encourage everyone to read Hazony’s article, which holds many more riches for the reader and, is also astonishingly prescient.
PS: I also recommend Hazony’s 2016 essay; “Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom”
“A conflict is brewing over the shape of the international order. It centers around an idea–a biblical idea–long thought discredited by political elites.”
Did you see the story about the high-school softball crowd in Fresno? The game was a double-header and they don’t play the national anthem before the second game. Apparently that policy was unfamiliar; when it was announced that the anthem would not be played, people booed, and then they spontaneously sang it! Very nice. Apparently they’re now going to change the policy and sing it before both games.
http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/high-school/article211991974.html
Quisling was rather the opposite lesson from WWII. But seemingly few people know it.