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What is Patriotism?

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~amman/articles/patriotism.html
Amman Madan
Published in Hindi through Sarvodaya feature service, April 2002.

Today when the burnt heaps in Gujarat are still smoldering, when Ayodhya promises to catch fire any
day, it is necessary to examine a central question: what is patriotism? Where do its roots lie?

The structure of patriotism


Every social group has its own notions of loyalty. The institution of family embeds loyalty to the family
as a social group. When a son and his wife and children separate from the rest of the family or when
brothers divide their property, the neighborhood reacts with sorrow and not glee. Caste associations
emphasize the benefits which come from an active participation and cooperation between different
members of the same caste. Tribal groups, too, emphasize similar benefits from collaboration.
The notion of patriotism is different from such forms of group loyalty. The difference lies in its close
affinity with the state. Patriotism is not based upon kinship or of shared descent like in families, castes
and tribes. Patriotism is based upon the idea of a nation and its central institution, the state.
Patriotism in modern India is thus qualitatively different from the love of one's community that was to be
seen in ancient and medieval India. Its relation to one's country has changed with the change in the social
structure of the state and the nation. To a great extent the pre-modern states and countries were based
upon the rule of one or a few social groups. The Gupta period was dominated by the Guptas and their
kindred and allies. The Mughals saw the domination of the Mughal biradari, and their supporters who
included the Turks, the Iranians and several other groups like the Rajputs. Modern India is based upon
the ideology of equality of all. While there continue to be several hangovers of the past to be seen today,
the
basic
character
of
the
state
and
the
nation
have
changed.
Modern India is based upon the idea that all its citizens are equal and that its rulers represent the will of
not just a few, but all of the different communities that make up this country. This nation is based upon
different foundations than most of those which went before it. Its legitimacy lies in its being able to
satisfy its various component communities that their interests will be safeguarded by the Indian state.

Irrespective of the religion, caste, community, sex of the individual, the state is supposed to represent
each and every of them. The modern nation has its appeal because of its being able to mediate between
and reconcile often conflicting interests. The state is considered legitimate when it speaks with the same
voice
to
all.
It is the coming together of so many diverse groups which lends strength to the country. The strength of
India lies in its being able to weld together a large and heterogeneous populace into a common force.
Any country in modern times which seeks to progress and develop must find ways of attracting and
retaining the loyalty of its constituent groups. In modern nations this is done by everybody voting to
select their rulers and the creation of a bureaucracy based on selection through merit.
A modern state, with its universal appeal to its people, has many advantages over the older kinds of
nationhood and statehood, with their sectional support bases. The universalistic modern state is what the
most powerful countries of the world have. It is through this social form that resources are used most
efficiently and the diverse forces of a country focussed for the benefit of everybody. Patriotism in a
modern country cannot be created on the basis of ideas that appeal to only partisan groups or some
sections of society. The naked use of force to coerce acceptance of the nation is not a characteristic of a
society based on reason and democracy.

The content of patriotism in a modern country


The transformed structure of patriotism leads to a change in the content of what patriotism would mean
in everyday practice. Modern patriotism and nationhood is based upon symbols that all can share. By
definition
this
excludes
symbols
that
pit
religion
against
religion.
Patriotism in a modern country must be expressed through universal symbols. These are all around us
and yet are ignored. The streets of a neighborhood are a truer symbol of nationhood than a place of
worship. They are used by all and paid for by the contributions of all. Yet, they remain filthy while
people
pool
money
to
build
distant
places
of
worship.
When universal symbols are not altogether ignored here, they are attacked by all kinds of distortions. The
symbols of the rich are enthroned as the symbols of the entire nation. The tragedy of the many poor who
have been thrown out of their homes by big dams does not arouse us. The tragedy of the middle-class
Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes does. The latter are called refugees in their own
homeland. The dispossessed adivasis and rural poor who did not have relatives that they could flee to in

Delhi do not attract national sympathy. Nor do the Kashmiri Muslims who had to flee Kashmir, in spite
of
their
outnumbering
the
Kashmiri
Pandits.
Clearly we are still in the process of moving towards modern nationhood. The model of modernity which
Indians must aspire towards cannot be the same as that in the West. We are far too heterogeneous to ever
become the kind of nation which fascist Germany once aspired to be. And our forms of production are
still not capitalistic enough to become the kind of melting pot of identities which the USA was. We must
define our own modernity. That universal framework of Indian reason must be the framework through
which our nationhood and patriotism must be defined. It must be a patriotism which seeks with Gandhiji
the happiness of the poorest of the poor as the index of our national development. It must be a patriotism
which sees the freedom of the smallest of the minorities as the index of our social development. It must
be a patriotism which comes into action every day, through a conscience that sees lying to customers,
exploiting labourers, cheating on tax, paying bribes, adding sand to cement, oppressing the poor, paying
obeisance to the powerful, all these daily acts of betrayal of the people as treason.
Every secular space in a modern country teaches a lesson of patriotism. But school education is a special
area for our concern. It is here where most young people come together crossing the old boundaries of
religion and caste. It is here where the new nation is being constructed. That makes it even more
necessary to be cautious about the introduction of religious values in schools. The kind of values which
we seek must be in tune with the universal appeal of our country. Where the values being taught
emphasize freedom of thought and truths that are shared by all and not just a few. The modern idea of
India is about equality and the transcendence of social barriers, not about narrow dividing walls. It is
high time that we rethought our school experience to try and create a land where the patriot is she who
risks her life to protect an unknown stranger, and where the traitor is he who kills his friend in the name
of his god.

Blind Patriotism
by Mike Wasdin
Patriotism is defined as, a feeling of love and devotion to one's own homeland.
(Patria: The land of one's fathers.) It seems that this definition has fallen by the
wayside and been replaced by blind devotion to one's leaders ("America, right or
wrong," "America, love it or leave it" or "You are either with us or against us.) Might
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may bring success in war, but it does not make the stronger side right; it only makes
them a bully!
By and large, any selfless act that directly benefits the State will be deemed patriotic;
perhaps the clearest example is the act of risking ones life in battle for the State.
Many other less dramatic beneficial acts, such as performing the backup work
needed to keep a military force functioning, or looking out for the morale of soldiers,
may also be considered patriotic.
Symbolic acts are often considered to be patriotic as well. These acts would include
flying the national flag, singing the national anthem, participating in a mass rally,
placing a patriotic bumper sticker on ones vehicle, or any other way of publicly
proclaiming ones blind allegiance to the State.
The line between these kinds of patriotic acts is vague, and blurred by the fact that
some people feel that in committing an act of symbolic patriotism, they are raising
the strength of mind or morale of their fellow man. The fact that these symbolic
gestures are usually performed by those who lack the testicles to actually go off and
fight in a war themselves is often overlooked by the sheep; better your son than
theirs.
The degree of patriotism varies across time and among nations. Typically, patriotic
acts and feelings are greater during wartime, or when that nation is otherwise under
external threat. It is less understood why nations vary in their levels of patriotic
feeling. Among modern societies, many have observed a difference between the
United States, where symbolic patriotic expression is highly prevalent, and the
nations of Western Europe, where symbolic patriotic expression certainly exists, but
plays a less important role.
The types of acts considered patriotic depend very much on ones point of view. Acts
that one person considers patriotic may appear treasonous to another. For example,
both soldiers and war resisters may consider their actions driven by a love of their
country, and a desire to see the greatest good for it; while at the same time seeing the
other persons actions as damaging and unpatriotic.
People have different opinions about whether patriotism is morally good. Often,
these opinions vary according to what sort of patriotic and religious fundamentalism
is involved. People see religious wars against barbarians (non-believers) as superior
to wars of imperialism and are therefore more inclined to fight "terrorism" than they
are to fight to steal another countrys oil or land.
Some instances of patriotism induce almost universal approbation. To give just one
of many possible examples: In 1940, a number of Dutch soldiers gave their lives in a
hopeless cause attempting to defend the Netherlands from invading Nazi armies.
This act would be considered by almost everyone to be a clear case of selfless,
admirable patriotism. Yet many of the invading Nazi soldiers doubtless felt too, that
they were engaged in patriotic acts, in this case on behalf of the German nation.
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Many of them had been indoctrinated in a form of unquestioning patriotism during


their teenage years, while they were members of the Hitler Youth.
Very few people today, even in Germany, would consider the unprovoked German
attack on Holland to have been justified. To the extent that patriotism facilitated it,
then patriotism could be considered, in this case, a bad thing. Throughout history,
various governments have invoked patriotic feelings to support military aggression,
arbitrary imprisonment of aliens, and even murder--acts considered to be evil by
most individuals.
In addition, many politicians have exploited patriotism in attacking their opponents,
accusing them of betraying the State. It appeals only to a visceral negative emotion
(that is, angry patriotism), rather than ones reasoned views on policy. George Bush
is a master at this particular form of propaganda, and that nearly half of the voters
bought into his scam is proof that it still works.
A commonly cited example of the danger inherent in the political exploitation of
patriotism is the case of Adolf Hitler, who rose to power (terminating the federal
republic in Germany for many years) in part by accusing the existing government of
treason for having signed the armistice that ended the First World War.
A good argument can be made that by admiring a particular act of patriotism, we are
admiring patriotism itself, or rather the selflessness that patriotism often inspires.
Returning to the example given above, (the German invasion of Holland) it should be
examined whether any particular self-sacrificing Dutch soldier actually experienced
the emotion of patriotism (that is, devotion to the Dutch national state) while he
fought? It is possible that some of these soldiers fought merely because they hated
fascism, because they did not want to appear to be cowards, or because they felt that
a soldier always ought to do his duty.
In this example, we can imagine two soldiers, equally brave and self-sacrificing. The
first soldier is motivated by a narrow-minded, chauvinistic preference for all things
Dutch. The second cares nothing for the Dutch State as such, but has carefully
studied fascism and has a deep commitment to save the world from its perceived
evils. Many people might well admire the second soldier more than the first, even
though he could be considered the less patriotic of the two.
The example illustrates the point that patriotism embodies two things: selflessness,
which virtually everyone admires, plus a belief that we owe a greater allegiance to our
fellow citizens than to ourselves, or foreign countrymen.
The question of whether we are more like brothers with our countrymen than with
foreigners arises constantly in practical life. For instance, immigration laws are based
on the principle that the citizens of a country, merely by accident of birth, have an
automatic entitlement to live in it, but a foreigner does not. Little consensus
currently exists about how, in formulating policies, we should weigh loyalties to the
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State against loyalties to all of our fellow humans.


In his article "Is patriotism a virtue?" (1984), the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre
addresses this question in a particularly subtle way. He first notes that most
contemporary conceptions of morality insist on a kind of impartial blindness. He
suggests accidental traits like national origin, in the just treatment of our fellow
humans; patriotism is inevitably not moral under these conceptions. MacIntyre goes
on, however, to construct a sophisticated alternative conception of morality, which
would be compatible with patriotism.
History has many famous patriots who were not native to the country they defended.
For example, the Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who fought for the
independence of the 13 British colonies of America, and many other heroes of
humanity.
Why do so many people experience intense patriotic feelings? Terms such as Patriot
Act and United We Stand, have turned our society into brainwashed sheep, willing to
give up their freedoms at the drop of a hat. It seems possible, in fact, that there are
two meanings for the phrase Patriotic Act. In the broad sense, a patriotic act is any
selfless act that benefits the State, irrespective of motivation. In the narrow sense, a
patriotic act is a selfless act that is specifically motivated by patriotic feelings.
One explanation that has been proposed is that such feelings result, in the long run,
from kin selection. Our ancestors certainly lived in small groups of genetically related
individuals. Feelings of intense loyalty to one's own group might have led individuals
to take actions that were poorly justified on grounds of self-interest, but helped the
group as a whole. Since genes tend to have been
shared by the entire group, and cooperation likely was critical to group survival, a
propensity to experience feelings of loyalty to the group was probably favored by
natural selection, an idea that had been expressed by Charles Darwin in 1871.
Since Darwins time, evidence for kin selection has been observed among many
species that live in small groups. Frequently, animals in such species have been
observed taking actions that risk their own lives, but benefit the safety of the group as
a whole. An example would be the issuance of a warning call against predators, an act
that directs the predators attention to the creature that gave the warning. Moreover,
it is documented that the members of such groups typically are indeed related, and
thus share a tacit interest in the long-term success of each others genetic
endowment.
Today, of course the feelings of intense patriotism that grip many Americans cannot
possibly be supported in the evolutionary sense by kin selection, since Americans
form a huge and genetically very diverse population. This lack of connection with the
original genetic predisposition to protect the genetic line has made the unnatural
leap to protecting arbitrary political boundaries or defending one's concept of the
god creature.

The political rhetoric associated with patriotism often compares the State to a family,
as in for instance, the terms Fatherland, land of the free, or Mother Russia. In the
kin-selection account of patriotism, this kind of metaphor might be viewed as seeking
to focus the natural feelings people have towards kin onto the State as a whole.
Still other people would reject the kin selection theory of patriotism simply because
they reject the theory of evolution on which it depends. Often such individuals rely
instead on religious beliefs, or dogma to understand why the human character is the
way it is. From this point of view, one possible account of patriotism would be that
god has permitted individual people to become either good or evil (a consequence
of the doctrine of free will), and that patriotism is simply a natural behavior of good
people.
Throughout history, patriotic feeling has often been linked to religion. At various
points in history, particularly in time of war, various relations of religion and
patriotism have prevailed. In one variant, patriotic participants in a war acknowledge
that the enemy worships the same god, but judge that this god is on their own
side, thus providing the external justification for patriotism noted above; god loves
me more! This is perhaps a fair characterization of the attitude of many of the
participants in the American Civil War, or most of the fronts of the First World War.
Another variant is for each side to worship different gods, acknowledge that the
other side's god exists, but believe that their own god is superior. This may have
characterized the conflicts between the ancient Israelites and their Canaanite
opponents. Or said another way, my god is greater than your god, and I am
willing to kill you to prove it!
Yet another version of religious patriotism is the belief that a god or set of gods is
on one's side, and that the god or gods of the other side simply do not exist. This
view often characterized the beliefs of the European powers during the colonialist
period, when their armies often fought against pagan opponents.
Under any of these circumstances, religion can provide a satisfactory account to its
believers for what otherwise would be a paradox, namely, that both sides in a conflict
can feel patriotic at the same time. The idea would be that the other side is in fact
fighting against gods will, and thus can be considered to be engaged in a false kind
of patriotism.
I think an argument can be made that democratic government is a cause of
patriotism. For instance, it could be imagined that the military forces of ancient
Greece succeeded in fending off much larger numbers of attacking Persians because
ancient Persia was a despotism, whereas many of the Greeks lived in democracies,
which gave them a sense of solidarity and hence of patriotism.
Similarly, it is often thought that the French Revolution, by freeing the French of the
yoke of monarchy, set off a great surge of patriotism that led to the great (if
ultimately temporary) success of the French armies in the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars.
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Of course I realize that this theory cannot be entirely true, since there have been
many nations that have had tyrannical systems of government, but nonetheless had
very high levels of patriotism. Two have already been mentioned here: early 19thcentury France (after Napoleon had made himself emperor) and Nazi Germany. A
third and more recent tyrannical (dare we speak it) government is the American
Theocracy.
Patriotism can be either for or against the current government of a nation.
Supporters of the current government may hold the opinion that patriotism implies
support of one's government and its policies, and that opposition to the government's
policies amounts to treason. But in other instances, rebellion against a corrupt or
tyrannical government may be justified as an act needed to save the nation, and thus
is likewise motivated by patriotism.
Patriotism is at times associated with ethnocentrism, or the belief in the inherent
superiority of one's own people. However, in the case of ethnocentrism, the people in
question need not form a nation, but can be a smaller or larger unit. Moreover, the
term ethnocentrism is generally used negatively, whereas the term patriotism is quite
often used positively.
It is also sometimes problematic to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism,
as some people tend to use nationalist as a near synonym for patriot. However,
nationalism (but not patriotism) also has a particular meaning, expressing a desire
among a people to form an independent nation.
After September 11, 2001, there was a surge of patriotic feeling in this country, which
became manifested in many of the phenomena discussed above. For instance,
displays of symbolic patriotism became ubiquitous, as Americans took to attaching
multiple flags to their automobiles and the outside of their homes. As in previous
episodes of intense patriotism, the political climate came to include accusations of
national betrayal and even treason. For example, President George W. Bush claimed,
"If you're not with us, you're against us." In the U.S. Senate, Republican senator
Trent Lott exclaimed "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we
are fighting our war on terrorism?"
It is my belief that the surge in patriotism was a key factor that enabled a number of
major changes in national policy. The (conspicuously named) USA PATRIOT Act,
which was hurriedly passed in late September of 2001, was designed to combat
terrorism but is considered by many to constitute a harmful assault on civil liberties
and freedoms. It is obvious that the patriotic
surge created a political climate under which it was possible for the Bush
Administration to launch wars first in Afghanistan and then (far more
controversially) in Iraq.
Like almost all wars, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq appear to have increased
patriotic feeling. As casualties have mounted and opposition to the war has
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increased, a pattern seen earlier in the Vietnam War has re-emerged: Those in favor
of war consider those who oppose it to be unpatriotic, or even outright traitors.
Several conservative commentators have indicated they feel that news that paints the
US in a negative light is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Once again, war is the
health of the State.
These are perhaps some of the most famous remarks about patriotism made: Samuel
Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Well-known anarchist of
her day Emma Goldman, in a speech entitled What is Patriotism? delivered in
1908, said of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, He defines patriotism as the principle
that will justify the training of wholesale murderers." Three years later, in
Patriotism a menace to liberty, she wrote, "Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the
essentials of patriotism.
Author George Bernard Shaw defined patriotism as "your conviction that this
country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." In a notebook
in 1904, Mark Twain wrote, "The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as
patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been." Bertrand Russell said,
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
There can be no moral or legal justification for the type of patriotism that seeks only
to inspire the members of one group to commit unspeakable acts against other
groups for religious or political gain. Small groups should protect their genetic line
from extinction from other groups by returning patriotism to its natural inclination.
It is long overdue for mankind to end the faith of Blind Patriotism!
September 28, 2004
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/wasdin/wasdin8.html
Writing essays on patriotism requires the knowledge of the society, people, political system of a
particular state, as well as personal beliefs and political views. Patriotism essays should contain
information on the state you live in and on your own point of view on what are main constituents of
patriotism. For example, you may begin your paper on patriotism with the following paragraph.
A true patriot is a person who loves his country and is ready to serve and protect it. Canada is a
democratic state that is open to people of all races and beliefs, gender, skin color and social position.
This democratic state defends the democratic values and liberties. It is ready to protect its citizens from
attacks of any kind. The government promotes democracy, liberty and equality for everyone that leads to
feelings of independence and confidence in the future in the hearts of its people.
Patriotism essay should cover information on notion of patriotism that denotes morale and political
principle, social feeling the essence of which is love to native country and readiness to serve the interests
of the state. Essays on patriotism usually include information on the pride of people for their country, its
achievements and culture. A patriot wants to preserve its uniqueness and cultural heritage identifying

himself with other members of the nation being ready to place countrys interests higher than his own
ones. Besides, a patriot strives for protecting interests of his country and his people.
Essays on patriotism also contain information on love and devotion of people to the native land,
language and traditions. For centuries there existed isolated states where patriotism became an essential
part of social consciousness that reflected national moments in its development in conditions of nations
formation. John Kennedy said: Do not ask what your country can do for you ask yourself what you
can do for your native country.
Our writers and editors are ready to help students with essays on patriotism. We are here to serve you
and complete the order according to your requirements. Be sure that your paper ordered at our company
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HOME > BOOKS > For Love of Country?

For Love of Country?


by

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FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY? (2001)

Edited by Joshua Cohen


By Martha Nussbaum and Benjamin R. Barber, Sissela Bok, Nathan Glazer,
Robert Pinsky, Elaine Scarry, Amartya Sen, Michael Walzer, Judith Butler,
Richard Falk, Hilary Putnam and other smarty pantses.
Erich does not have a "God Bless America" bumper sticker...
I've read all sorts of crap pertaining to 9-11, from Bill Bennett's rambling ranting to Ann Coulter's foam
spattered columns, not to mention the JDL leaflets Jonny hands out at the movie theaters. So it was long
past time to check out a book featuring well thought out arguments from smart people who aren't trying
to grandstand their way onto "Crossfire." Although this book was initially released prior to 9-11, it has
been re-released as a 9-11 book because it pertains to one of the central issues to have come up since the
attack. The topic is patriotism, which is one of the refreshing things about the book. Most people still
seem to think that patriotism isn't really an issue at all. Even the blindest, most crass expressions of faith
in the stars and stripes are widely applauded. As a result, the flag has been marketed and exploited to the
extent that it's the pet rock of 2002. The national mindset was summed up perfectly by the transitional
phase on fast food billboards during which they went from "God Bless America" to "God Bless
America/ Whopper, 99 Cents!"
So it's high time to take a step back and think about patriotism, and conveniently enough, you can go to
a decent bookstore and find a copy of this little collection of essays from many of the biggest names in
academia. Academics can be frustrating, of course, and this book features many of the tendencies that
can make reading academic writing painful. There are several instances of the "you say tomato/ I say
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tomato" arguments common among this bunch. There are a few instances of writers taking pages to say
what could be said in a single sentence, especially Judith Butler, who writes like she's playing scrabble.
These annoyances are sporadic, however, and the norm is accessibility and insight. For Love of
Country? is even a bit of a page-turner if you read the chapters in the order of who's criticizing whom
rather than the order in which they are presented. I skipped to Sen's chapter because he's the man. Sen
rips into Bok and a couple of others so I had to read what they had said and it just keept going from
there. Then, of course, there's the temptation to skip to the end to see what Nussbaum says to all of her
critics.
The book was launched by an essay on patriotism by Martha Nussbaum. Everyone with a PhD wrote a
response and the best responses were put into the book, along with Nussbaum's original essay and her
answer to her critics. Nussbaum's view is roughly as follows. We connect to and value people through a
series of concentric circles beginning with ourselves and radiating out to include the nuclear family,
friends, the extended family, communities and so on. Patriotism, that is, a special bond and obligation to
those in our own country, may have it's virtues, but given that the country in which a person is born is
essentially arbitrary, patriotism can be dangerous if it throws those circles out of order. Those aspects of
"patriotism" that teach us to devalue other people on the basis of nationality should be discarded because
nationalistic chauvinism can lead us to immoral disregard of the well being of the people of other
countries and cultures. Instead, we should emphasize a cosmopolitan outlook according to which we see
ourselves and others as primarily "citizens of the world," or members of the Kantian "kingdom of ends."
In other words, the value of other people as moral agents should take precedence over their national
origin. So a lot of the discussion in the book winds up being cosmopolitanism vs. Patriotism.
The responses are various and all at least worth reading. I can't go through all of them, but I can discuss
some of the more common themes. I believe every contributor recognizes that there are good aspects of
patriotism (although it's a pretty vague word). For example, it is pointed out that embracing what is good
about one's country is helps to perpetuate those virtues. Some even argue that this form of patriotism is
the best basis for the cosmopolitan virtues favored by Nussbaum. For example, the idea of individual
rights as expressed in and learned from the U.S. Constitution might be the basis for our condemnation of
female circumcision abroad.
One point on which Nussbaum is dead wrong, or perhaps just sloppy with language, is her talk about the
arbitrary nature of nationality, race, gender and so forth. She sometimes speaks as though she believes
(maybe she does? too much Plato) that we are souls floating down from heaven who might just as easily
land in a female body in France as an male body in Iran. It is much more likely, of course, that "you" are
best described as something like a mass of characteristics. If you were born in Iran, of the opposite
gender, with a higher IQ a different family a different race and so on, you wouldn't be you. "You" would
be someone else. Maybe a better point for Nussbaum's point of view, is that there is certainly someone in
Iran who has a lot in common with you and to whom you could relate much better than your next door
neighbor.
Hilary Putnam argues that liberal-types often pick out religion and nationalism as causes of barbarity
when they are really only pretexts. I have to zero in on this point because it is also very wrong, although
it seems plausible at first. Joe may indeed have barbaric impulses, but religion in particular can do much
more than serve as a pretext for carrying them out. It can nourish and condone those impulses and, in his
mind, remove the consequences of acting on them. There's a world of difference between an angry

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young male and an angry young male who thinks that the people across the street are enemies of God
and that, if he dies in the act of murdering them, he will go to heaven.
Nationalism is less effective, but can function similarly. Many felt and feel that men of draft age should
have fought in Vietnam to "honor their country," even if they thought that the war effort was morally
wrong. Many of those who killed and died there were hardly jumping on a pretext to fulfill their natural
impulses. I'd imagine that most would have preferred to stay home but felt that they were acting out of
national duty, or for the sake of honor - "fighting for their country." Putnam's stickier follow up point is
that atrocities seem to happen even without traditional nationalism and religion, as in the USSR. But this
misses the more fundamental point that a necessary condition for most large-scale atrocities is an "us
versus them" mentality. Nussbaum thinks that we should attempt to minimize that sort of thinking
regardless of whether the us and them are Christians and the damned, Americans and towel--heads, or
Communists and enemies of the working class. Such thinking may be impossible to eradicate, but she
hopes that by promoting a more cosmopolitan outlook, it can be curtailed.
Nussbaum's argument reminds me of what Studs Turkel said about the effectiveness of that famous
photo of a naked Vietnemese child running from napalm in a state of total terror. Looking at the photo,
we are able to see her as our daughter, or perhaps as a neighbor. Part of the reason for the "failure" of
that war was the availability of images like that one that broke through nationalist abstractions. This
cross-national point of connection is precisely the sort of thing Nussbaum is arguing for.
The most conservative contributor to the book is probably Michael W. McConnell, who argues that
cosmopolitism is the "by product of an effective moral education in a great tradition," namely a religious
and national tradition. He feels that teaching morality outside of these traditions will lead to something
approaching nihilism, arguing that if children can't appreciate the achievements of their own culture that
they won't appreciate those of others. Duh. I think Nussbaum's point is that children ought to be able to
appreciate both. His broader point is that, without the sort of patriotic and religious grounding he favors,
"cosmopolitanism" becomes a love of abstract, unattainable principles rather than of real traditions and
real people.
Richard Falk and a couple of others think that Nussbaum has missed the boat. The forces of
consumerism and capital have already discarded nationalism where it counts. The issue we face in the
world today is not cosmopolitism versus patriotism, but what kind of cosmopolitanism will prevail: one
dictated by corporate interests and unchecked market forces or one of democracy and human rights.
Falk's points are interesting, but I found myself wondering if he follows the news much. Palestinians,
Israelis, Indians, Pakistanis, Serbs and Croats, to name a few, would have something to say about the
thesis that national differences are not significant. More broadly, however, Falk may have a point in that
these conflicts are in some ways minor compared to those of the World Wars and the Cold War. Perhaps
many issues that seem tied to patriotism are actually more about the conflict Falk discusses and, if the
struggle he outlines really is the more fundamental one, the patriotic/cosmopolitan distinction becomes
scrambled. For example, he worries that Sweden can no longer be Sweden, as market pressures force a
rollback of the Swedish welfare state in the name of competition. So one thing at stake is the autonomy
of Sweden and other countries. At the same time, that restriction in autonomy is may be a barrier to
Nussbaum's ideals for cosmopolitanism, as governments are unable to ensure rights and privileges that
their populations may want or, in some cases, be morally entitled to.

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So in the end, it seems like we wind up with some pretty old lessons and values, mainly the virtue of
moderation. Nussbaum's ultimate goal is to promote the idea of humanity as a Kantian "kingdom of
ends." Patriotism can aid this goal to the extent that incorporating laudable principles into national
identity helps to promote them. So, for example, we have something like "we Americans believe in
freedom of speech." If you are too anti-patriotic, you risk loosing these ideals. But too much patriotism
leads the other way: "we Americans believe in freedom of speech and you Arabs don't, therefore it's ok
to kill you." So the here are some of the next set of questions: where is your society on the spectrum and
what measures ought to be taken to situate it at an ideal point on the spectrum? At what point does
clinging to our national values lead to insularity and chauvinism? How do these issues change in the
face of globalization? And a lot more. The book deals with most of these questions and covers a lot of
territory in around 200 pages. Buying a copy is sufficient penance for any of you who have purchased
Ann Coulter's book.
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/reviews.cfm/id/645/page/for_love_of_country_.html

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