Ernest Hemingway (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Patriotism

A quote from Ernest Hemingway (from A Farewell To Arms):

           “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.”

And another (from Selected Letters):

“I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends.”

And another (from Notes On The Next War):

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”

These quotes from Hemingway capture a lot of how I feel about patriotism. I know that Hemingway is a very controversial writer in these times. He was very left-leaning for many years in world politics, especially in Castro’s takeover of Cuba. As a writer, he seemed uninterested in, and even hostile toward, his female characters. Today, he has more detractors than followers. But he did succinctly express the thoughts on war of a man who had been there.

                                 American children pledging allegiance to the flag 

                                (credit: Staff Sgt. Bernardo Fuller, Public Domain) 

                                         Chinese children in PRC saluting flag

                                                     (credit: chinadaily.com)

So why am I picking on the human mindset called “patriotism”? Can’t it be an asset or, at least, harmless if it is controlled carefully? I don’t think so.

I don’t think it can be controlled in the long haul. Deep in the chemistry of the human psyche, it turns into militarism in the end, under the pressures of real politics in a world full of nations in which there are a lot of patriotic people. The nations are bound to have disputes. The citizens’ patriotism will gradually draw them more and more into inflating these disputes, for the protection of their economies, rights of minorities, or just plain “face”.

Patriotism does not openly drive tolerance out of the individual human heart, but the two have many difficult times in living together. And as their clashes get more and more heated, the owner of that heart gets weary with trying to resolve their disputes. Then, she or he gradually tends to lean more and more to one of the two sides, the patriotic or the tolerant. ("But these immigrants are taking Canadian jobs!") Reduce cognitive dissonance. Rah-rah patriotism gets a person more friends faster than quiet expressions of tolerance ever will.

The idea that maybe the whole human race is going to have to give up patriotism is abstract and counterintuitive for most people in every country today. It is so contrary to what they absorbed as kids from their culture, i.e. their parents, teachers, entertainment media, etc. The Fatherland. Mother Russia. America, Land of the Free. Rule Britannia. Vive la France. Viva Mexico. O Canada. The East is Red. All of these nations have fought wars with several of the others at different times in their histories.  My land, Canada, is a kind country. But Canada has made too many bad mistakes for me to ever give her some kind of unconditional loyalty.

Like we could learn to treat all other humans with respect, regardless of their skin color, ethnicity, accent, gender preference, etc., we could learn to let go of patriotism. I base that claim on the fact that there have been so many folk in the past century who have done it. Given up an old patriotism for a new one, or in some cases, for no patriotic feelings at all. Russians who became devoted Americans after being accepted as U.S. citizens. Korean-Americans. Indo-Britons. Turko-Germans. Ukrainian-Canadians. Afro-Mexicanos.

                                        Pan American Health Organization Interns

                                                            (credit: paho.org) 

So I’ll state my thesis today plainly: patriotism must fade out of the psyches of the citizens of the future if we are going to survive. Its day is over. You are a human being. Your identity may contain implicit loyalties to several groups and causes. But not to a nation. The feelings of rivalry and jealousy that belonging to a nation stir up are just too risky. It’s you as a person that I look at as I decide whether you are deserving of my respect and, maybe even, brotherly love.

We can reprogram ourselves and, even better, the kids, to take pride in being good swimmers or knowledgeable movie fans or software engineers or writers or dancers or even loyal sons or daughters or pediatricians or any of thousands of other forms of identity. But rah-rah patriotism? “My country right or wrong”? Either that way of thinking is obsolete, or we are.