Pride of place

‘Where are you from?’

I get asked this a lot because I still sound like an American. While being a citizen of the world – someone whose true allegiance is to all of humanity – is an idea that appeals to me a great deal, I never say ‘Earth.’ Instead I tell them where I was born and grew up, and how long I’ve lived in Australia. It’s now been almost half my life.

The place ‘where we’re from’ is defined by the boundaries on a map and the political system that makes the rules for that place. Even international law, as the adjective suggests, is about the relations between nations. You are a citizen of a sovereign nation either because you were born there or because you moved there and satisfied the requirements for becoming a citizen.

Patriotism taught and tested

Many American readers will remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in their primary school classrooms each morning. Refusal would have been met with a reprimand, but I don’t think it ever occurred to anybody to try to opt out. ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was a regular part of assemblies, summer camps, and sporting events from high school to professional level. Those of us who were Scouts promised ‘to do my duty to God and my country’. Patriotism was considered a virtue, and was expected, just like honesty, respect for adults, and obedience to laws.

For many, however, it has been tested. Successive generations of Americans since the 1960s have discovered that their elected representatives – in Congress, in the White House, or both – were guilty of:

• sending citizens to fight an unwinnable war with dubious justification;
• burglary, deception and illegal surveillance;
• supporting odious foreign regimes;
• provoking escalating international tensions with potentially catastrophic consequences;
• reacting to terrorism by passing laws that expanded government powers and call into question US commitment to civil liberties and international law;
• altering the boundaries of electoral districts to favor their political party;
• making voting difficult for members of demographic groups less likely to vote for them;
• allowing corporate money and power to shape not only law and policy but the content of news coverage;
• obstructing the functions of government, engaging in or condoning illegal behavior, responding in a dilatory fashion to circumstances having consequences for millions of lives, and making false, misleading and dangerous statements on a daily basis.

In 2019, a Gallup poll found that fewer than half of US adults (45%) were ‘extremely proud’ to be American.

Political polarization has had a detrimental effect on patriotism, too. As the distance between conservative and liberal positions widens, concern for fellow citizens starts to look more like concern for like-minded fellow citizens and not the ones on the opposite side, who are seen as either ruthless and self-serving or naïve and impractical. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic brought out these divisions in new and deadly ways. In the United States, there were protests of the stay-at-home restrictions, and these were fueled, publicized and amplified by right-wing organizations and media.

The protests also drew anti-vaxxers and other science skeptics, proponents of the constitutional freedom to intimidate others by carrying firearms, and individuals and groups generally hostile to government authority. A stew of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and powerful corporate pressure, abetted and encouraged by the president and his party, enabled these groups and state governments to dismiss and defy the warnings of public health experts and to enlist people who were worried about how they’d pay the bills in the push to ‘restart the economy’. Insofar as these responses are emblematic of the American cult of individualism and unquestioning acceptance of market capitalism, the citizen who finds these things repugnant is hard-pressed to reconcile their presence with patriotism.

Responding to reality

The realization that your country hasn’t been acting according to the values you thought it stood for can feel like a betrayal. How can someone care for and identify with a country whose behavior, or that of its populace, suggests it does not return or deserve her care and concern?  

A radical response is to repudiate it by leaving it. This is not an option unless you have somewhere else to go, and in any case you may love many other things about your homeland. So you turn to activism: joining groups devoted to change, contacting politicians, writing or speaking publicly about issues, doing volunteer work, creating art with a message, or some other form of action. These efforts are driven by love and concern for one’s country – not as it is, but ‘as it should be’. Patriotism, then, can be a catalyst for reform. 

But not every political activist is motivated by patriotism. Others are concerned about human rights, the free flow of information, democratic process, or a safe and healthy environment anywhere and everywhere, not just in their own country. Their activism may have nothing to do with their feelings about the country, except that the injustice or abuses are occurring close to where they happen to live. While love of country can be a motivating factor in people’s efforts to bring about change, it is not a necessary one.

Another problem with patriotism is more serious. When confronted with evidence that her country is not in fact fair, democratic, tolerant, honest or humane, another person – who is no less patriotic than the one moved to action – may react quite differently. Rather than resolving to work for change, she may instead choose to interpret the facts in a way that puts the nation in a better light, question the reliability of the source, or deny the truth of the evidence outright. The philosopher Simon Keller calls these ways of responding to unfavorable evidence about one’s country ‘bad faith’ and argues that bad faith is an unavoidable consequence of patriotism. Patriotism, on his account, has at its core a belief that one’s country has objectively valuable qualities that help to define the country’s identity and character. For example, the patriot may believe that her country values individual liberty, that its laws ensure that employers provide a safe workplace and adequate pay, and that it respects the cultures and contributions of immigrants. Stories in the news about warrantless surveillance, working people living in motels because they can’t afford to rent an apartment, and the proliferation of alt-right groups force the patriotic person to disbelieve what she’s heard or try to find some way of portraying the facts as positive. On this view, patriotism, far from being a virtue, is by its nature a vice.

Belonging and choice

Earlier, I suggested that a person’s patriotism will be challenged if her country – its government, one or more of its leaders and/or its people – has an ongoing pattern of one or more kinds of dishonorable conduct. Unless and until that changes, the would-be patriot will either have to convince herself that it’s really not that bad – engaging in what Keller calls bad faith – or try to reconcile her love and loyalty with shame. Is it possible to remain patriotic when you’re ashamed, not of yourself but of your country?

One of the elements of patriotism listed at the beginning of this paper is personal identification with one’s country. The person who thinks of herself as an American (Australian, Indian, Norwegian, etc.) is assenting to a mutual belonging. She has certain rights and responsibilities as a citizen of the country (such as voting, paying taxes, and obtaining a passport), and it has responsibilities to her (such as protection from crime, the provision and administration of public services, and consular assistance when she is in a foreign country). You can, of course, agree that it’s ‘your country’ without being patriotic. To some, being a citizen is no big deal, perhaps nothing more than a handy convenience when returning from an overseas trip and getting the short line through customs. To others, the feeling of belonging takes on a subjective, personal character. Like other emotional attachments, there is enormous variation in the ways that people experience and articulate it.

Most people’s relationship to their country is more similar to their connection to the family into which they were born (or adopted) than to a friendship or marriage. A naturalized citizen’s situation is different. By having chosen to become a citizen, she has explicitly undertaken a commitment to the country and to its ideals. For example, Australians repeat the ‘pledge of commitment’ at their citizenship ceremony:

‘From this time forward, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.’

(Each person can choose to include or not to include the words ‘under God’ after the words ‘From this time forward’.)

If both the native country and the new one permit dual citizenship, the immigrant may have an additional opportunity. Firsthand experience of the political and cultural practices of two places allows a fuller understanding of both. (This is true of long-term residents of a country too, even if they are unwilling or unable to become citizens.) For me, it’s not just being able to compare and contrast various aspects of my two countries that is the most valuable aspect of dual citizenship, but obtaining some insight into where my affinities and values have come from, and when.

In Keller’s ‘Patriotism as Bad Faith’, he points out that there are some forms of affection and loyalty to country that do not fit the definition of patriotism and hence are not targets of his argument that patriotism is not a virtue. For example, loving your country because you love its trees, its cheese, or its sports doesn’t make you a patriot. Nor does loving it because it stands for certain values that you endorse, such as freedom or fairness. Patriotism is not derived from something else that you value.

There is more to Keller’s account and to his argument, and I encourage you to read it if you’re interested in pursuing this topic further. If Keller is right about the nature of patriotism, then the attitude that I am discussing here is not patriotism. You can’t be both patriotic and ashamed of your country, but it is possible to care deeply about it and to be willing to make personal sacrifices in an effort to achieve change.

It’s also possible for someone to belong to more than one country, to feel affection and loyalty to both, and to fall into the trap of bad faith in respect of either or both. I should hope that this is less likely for the dual citizen. While she may be as susceptible as anyone else to bias, she has more firsthand information for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of both countries. The tax codes, the electoral systems, the treatment of animals, holiday customs, the importance and place of religion, the degree of gender equality, whether education is seen as a public right or a positional good, the way in which military service is regarded, how health care is provided and paid for, and negotiation of pay and conditions at work are just a few examples of legal and social areas that people find salient.

Social well-being

Whether or not you chose the country in which you live, what can you do if its norms and values are at odds with your own? How can you maintain equanimity and yet avoid self-deception about how great your country is?

People are members of multiple communities.  Some who are alienated from their country seek purpose and achievable goals in local organizations or devote their energy to transnational issues such as climate change or refugees. Others find their community with people of similar political ideals, and their collective efforts to remedy their nation’s problems take the place of patriotism. I wouldn’t want to claim that these types of causes and memberships can’t be psychologically and socially sufficient. Nor do I think that being estranged from your nation is morally suspect, or a guaranteed route to unhappiness. I would suggest, however, that very few people can fully sever ties with their native country, whether they want to or not. Here is an illustration.

I knew a man who was an American, a history teacher, and a well-liked and respected member of his local community. He was also an Army veteran, a church member, a spouse and a father. He was patriotic, but not in the sense of willful blindness to his nation’s faults. As a historian, he was well acquainted with his country’s questionable conduct, moral failings and self-deception dating back to its earliest days. His patriotism took the form of a duty to tell the unvarnished truth, a duty to vote, and a duty to live according to a code of ethics that brooks no exceptions. He also engaged in political activity, from volunteer work for political candidates in his thirties to letters to the editor in later life.

Why would someone believe he had a duty to a country that he knew had not always upheld its end of the mutual obligation? I think because he also knew that no one can escape history. The place where we spent our early years plays a large part in making us who we are. The history of the United States was to that extent his history.

For a number of reasons, he didn’t travel to any foreign countries until he was in his sixties. Prior to that, he had expressed little interest in doing so, citing commitments preventing long absences from home. Family members living in Australia were pleasantly surprised when he accepted their invitation to visit. He had read a lot about the country’s history, and as a young person had briefly entertained the idea of visiting it. Now he had a concrete motivation to go. No one should have been surprised when he fell in love with Australia almost immediately and declared frequently thereafter that he’d be happy to immigrate.

I can only speculate, but I think that if he had done so, he would have maintained a connection to the United States. Immigrants may be able to escape their history if they leave their native country when they’re very young; adults carry it with them, however eager they may be to leave it behind. Outside your country you’ll always be a representative of it. My friend knew this as well as I do.

To feel that your conduct should reflect favorably upon your old, new, or only country doesn’t necessarily mean a vain concern with what others think. There is more than enough information in the news for people to make up their own minds. It can instead indicate an awareness of the significance of belonging to a country, within or outside its borders – that its good is bound up with your own – and the hope that the causal connection between those goods goes both directions. 

References

Keller, Simon, ‘Patriotism as Bad Faith’, Ethics 115 (2005), 563–92, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/428458

Nathanson, Stephen, Patriotism, Morality and Peace (Rowman & Littlefield, 1993)

Primoratz, Igor, ‘Patriotism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Primoratz, Igor and Pavković, Aleksandar, Patriotism: Philosophical and Political Perspectives (Ashgate, 2007)

Photo credits

Man with fireworks by Rakicevic Nenad from Pexels.com

Reopen PA rally, Harrisburg, PA by Paul Weaver, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, cropped from original

Citation

Please cite as: Miller, L. Elaine, ‘Pride of Place’, It Could Be Words (blog), 20 August 2020, https://it-could-be-words.com/pride-of-place/