Who is the Patriot?

The women’s World Cup and Megan Rapinoe’s silent protest during the national anthem elicited once again indignant cries of outrage, led by the super-patriot President Bone Spurs.  Now one might ask where Trump’s patriotism was in the 60’s when his fellow countrymen were fighting in the jungles of Vietnam and he maneuvered himself out of the draft with the absurd disability of ‘bone spurs’.  But it has famously been said that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels’, and Trump is the poster child for that aphorism.

What is a patriot?  Who qualifies?  A patriot is someone who loves his or her country.  But what is a country?  A country is an abstraction – a collection of human beings who have a common interest because they are geographically co-located, have a shared government, military and economy, and may have a similar culture and language.  Why does this abstraction have such a powerful effect on so many people?

Allegiance to a country or nation is a relatively recent phenomenon – the modern nation-state has only been in existence for a few hundred years and its more fervent loyalties only since the American and French revolutions.  For most of history, peoples’ allegiances were more likely to focus on their tribe or religious group.  As empires rose and fell, they cultivated loyalty from those who sought or benefitted from power and wealth, but the masses were generally indifferent to the allure of an abstract entity like an empire that included multiple lands, peoples, religions and cultures.

As more homogeneous and well-defined nations emerged – France, England, Spain and later Germany, Italy and others – the concepts of nationalism and its attendant emotional ally, patriotism, began to inspire poets, songwriters and pamphleteers. 

The USA, initially a similarly homogeneous nation of mostly English culture and language (apart from a sizable slave and native population that was officially exempt from membership!) seemed to be uniquely endowed with patriotic ardor.   It was able to leverage the new idealistic fervor around liberty and freedom as well as traditional nationalistic themes to create a fever pitch of patriotism.  One of the first historical facts I learned as a child was the famous speech of Nathan Hale – ‘I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!’

The passion that attends patriotism is odd.  Unlike communism, socialism, capitalism and other idealistic constructs, patriotism does not have a single unifying concept other than self-interest.  John F. Kennedy’s famous exhortation to ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country’ turns the basic motivating factor of patriotism on its head.  Indeed, there are all sorts of contradictions in patriotism when one looks closely.

One could argue that patriotism is a love of our fellow citizens and a noble dedication to their well-being.  But this argument falls apart quickly when the patriot is asked to share some of his worldly goods with those same fellow citizens.  Patriotism seems to be more about the individual than the group, even though it is defined in terms of a group.  One might say that patriotism is really a love of a country that benefits that person by creating a rewarding environment. 

It seems that patriotism actually defies any rational definition.  Like all forms of tribalism, patriotism is a reflection of the need that most human beings have to identify with a group (see my blog on Tribes: https://rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2016/01/tribes.html ).  And this identification is often bound to an individual’s concept of honor - honor associated with a strict code of loyalty and unwavering devotion.  My country, right or wrong.  Love it or leave it!

But such blind devotion is clearly a contradiction and an impediment to progress.  In any practical scenario, a patriot should be seeking continuous improvement of his or her country, both for the patriot’s benefit as well as his or her fellow citizens.  Healthy and constructive criticism, of which peaceful protest is an important part, should be encouraged.  If a country is indeed ‘wrong’, then it is incumbent on its citizens to correct it.

It may feel good to embrace a mythical version of the USA and glorify it in uncritical terms, but that is not true patriotism.  The true patriot loves a country and its people enough to go through the difficult process of assessing its strengths and weaknesses and working tirelessly to make it better. 

We may not all agree on how to make it better, but honest and sincere efforts to identify areas for improvement like Megan Rapinoe’s and Colin Kaepernick’s deserve to be encouraged rather than vilified.  These are the truly courageous patriots.  The blind patriot is really no patriot at all.