In
my daily snowstorm of email I find furious appeals to
patriotism, usually addressed to large lists of
recipients. The writers invoke The Founding Fathers, urge
fealty, and counsel solidarity with all the whoop and holler
of a camp meeting. I'm puzzled. Why is patriotism thought to
be a virtue? It seems to me a scourge.
Judging
by my mail, patriotism has little to do with a fondness for
one's country. Yes, many Americans like America. They reflect
affectionately on Arizona's painted deserts and the wooded
hollows of Tennessee, on the music of Appalachia and New
Orleans, the rude vigor and brashness of a remarkable people,
the rich accents of Brooklyn and Mississippi, all the things
that give a sense of home and attachment in a large world. But
they do not want blood. They speak quietly. Apparently they
are not patriots. They do not use the word.
The
email patriots are different. They growl and threaten, and
seem less to appreciate their country than to hate others.
They remind me of nothing so much as bar-room drunks looking
for a fight. Their letters seethe with bitterness and begin
with denunciations of liberals and the communist media (by
which they mean any that fail to agree with them). They don't
eat French fries. They hate. They would make, and in fact did
make, excellent Nazis.
The
difference between patriotism and love of country seems to be
the difference between an inward-looking fondness and an
outward-looking hostility. The email patriots regard any
disagreement as treachery and softness. To doubt the wisdom or
necessity of a war, any war, is treason; any inclination to
think for oneself is evidence of being in the enemy's camp.
This
is everywhere the rule. There were Japanese who thought that
attacking the United States was not a conspicuously bright
idea. They were squelched by patriots. GIs loved duty in
Tokyo.
Malignant
patriotism explains the attack, by a large heavily armed
industrial power, against a weak and bedraggled nation so
helpless as to be conquered in weeks. I refer of course to the
Nazi assault on Poland. The Wehrmacht, like the Imperial
Japanese Army, was awash in patriotism. It is in large part
why they fought so well. No emotion is more usefully
manipulable by governments with misbehavior in mind.
The
connections among patriotism, military service, Christianity,
and morality are tangled and fascinating. The first two appear
to me to be incompatible with the second two. Consider Heinz,
a German youth joining his armed forces in, say, 1937.
Enlisting was then, as now, a patriotic thing to do. Heinz was
probably a decent sort. Most people are. He probably had
little interest in Poland, a minor creation which posed no
threat to Germany. He liked beer and girls.
Then,
come September of 1939, he found himself butchering Poles. The
war had nothing to do with defense. The German attack was
savage, unprovoked, and murderous. And why was Heinz killing
people he didn't know? Because his government told him it was
his patriotic duty. Which is to say that being in the
Wehrmacht meant forfeiting moral independence to a dark
squatty effeminate Aryan blond superman. Oh good.
It
is curious. If Heinz had decided to kill Poles as a
free-lance, he would have been called a mass-murderer, hanged,
and had a movie made about him. If as a soldier he had decided
not to kill Poles, having no reason to kill them, he might
have been shot as a mutineer. But when he killed them
unreflectingly because he had been told to, he became a minor
national hero and and, if extraordinarily effective in the
killing, received a medal.
Fortunately
for Adolph, refusals on moral grounds to kill the enemy, any
enemy, are rare. In human affairs, morality is more than
window-dressing, but not much more. Lust, hormones, and the
pack instinct take easy precedence. Thus armies seldom say en
masse, "No. We think it the wrong thing to do."
When
the war goes badly, patriotism becomes compulsory. Heinz,
driving toward Stalingrad, did not have the choice of changing
his mind. Deserters tend to be shot. Enormous moral suasion
serves to quell reluctance to die. Going against the herd is
unpleasant. Governments understand this well.
Patriotism
often needs propping, and gets it. Conscription serves to make
fight those who otherwise wouldn't. (The ancient Persians used
whips to force unwilling soldiers to go forward. Firing squads
work as well, and do not tire the arm.) Societies punish
draft-dodgers, except in the case of Republican presidents,
and revile conscientious objectors as cowards, traitors, and
homosexuals. Deserters particularly suffer heavy punishment,
because if soldiers in a long nasty war could escape without
penalty, most would.
Heinz,
being German, was probably a Christian. Soldiers often believe
themselves to be Christians. There is remarkably little in the
New Testament to encourage aggressive slaughter, yet Christian
countries have regularly attacked everybody within reach. (So
of course have most other countries.)
Heinz
cannot serve two masters. Either he puts the authority of
religion above that of government, or he kills anyone he is
told to kill. As a rule he compartmentalizes, accepts official
justifications, and obeys.
Why
does a coalition of Christian nations send troops at great
expense to the Middle East to attack a Moslem nation offering
no threat? I refer of course to the Crusades. The answer is
simple: Humankind has a profound instinct to form warring
groups. Crips and Bloods, Redskins and Cowboys, Catholics and
Protestants, liberals and conservatives. Because a thin veneer
of reason floats like pond scum on our instincts, we invent
tolerable rationalizations: We must take the Holy Lands from
the infidels. God says so.
In
Chicago, young males form nations, which they call by such
names as the Vice Lords, the P Stones, the Black Gangster
Disciples. They have ministers, pomp and circumstance,
hierarchy, and intense loyalty to the gang. They wear uniforms
of sorts-hats with bills pointed to the left or right, chosen
colors-and they fight for turf, which is empire measured in
blocks. The gangs of Chicago are international relations writ
small.
Patriotism
is most dangerous when mixed with religion. Both give high
purpose to low behavior. Worst are the fundamentalists, the
Ayatollahs and born-agains, the various Christian Wahabis and
Islamic Cromwells. A fundamentalist believes that any idea
wandering into his mind comes from On High. Actually he is
making it up. He confuses himself with God, which is not a
good thing when he is a bit loony to begin with.
Fundamentalists usually are.
Usually
wrong, but unfamiliar with doubt. I can't think of a better
ground for policy.
