Many authors find in patriotism or in national honor the chief or the
sole cause of war. Jones (37), the Freudian, for example, says that
patriotism is the sum of those causes of war which are conscious as
distinguished from the repressed motives. Nicolai (79) says that
patriotism and chauvinism would have no meaning and no interest
without reference to war, and that for the arts of peace one needs no
patriotism at all. Hoesch-Ernst (32), another German writer, says that
patriotism has made history a story of wars. It has developed the
highest virtues (and the worst vices), but it creates artificial
boundaries among peoples, and gives to every fighter the belief that
he is contending against brute force. Veblen (97) says that patriotism
is the only obstacle to peace among the nations.
MacCurdy (37) speaks
of the paradox of human nature seen in the fact that the loyalty we
call patriotism, which may make a man a benefactor to the whole race,
may become a menace to mankind when it is narrowly focussed. Novicow
says that what shall be foreign is a purely conventional matter.
Another writer remarks that patriotism is the guise under which the
instincts of tiger and wolf run riot.
Several writers, Powers (75), and especially Veblen, place questions
of national honor among the main causes of war. Veblen would hold that
wars never occur unless the questions involved are first converted
into questions of national honor--and are then, but only then,
supported as moral issues. Other writers are to be found who make the
same claims for honor, saying that wars are always over questions of
national honor--honor always meaning here, let us observe, not moral
principle but prestige, dignity, analogous to what we call personal
pride in the individual.
Broadly speaking, we may say that such views of war base it upon the
fact that nations are individuals, having personality and
self-consciousness, and are moved by emotions such as dominate the
individual, although such analogies between individual and group are
never free from objection. But that the consciousness of the group as
an individual may be exceedingly intense, full of aggressiveness,
intolerance and pride, of great sensitiveness to all outside the
group, is, of course, obvious from the history of nations. Groups thus
endowed with a sense of solidarity and sensitiveness become highly
vitalized and persistent personalities which stalk through the pages
of history with tremendous power and tenacity of purpose. Nations thus
live intensely, and in their intense feelings and personal attributes
there are expressed purposes and ideals, conscious and unconscious,
analogous to those which make the individual also an historical
entity.
There seem to be two aspects of group personality that need to be
investigated in detail in any study of war, and which must be
distinguished from one another, as they may be by referring to the
primitive or central emotional quality which each has.
These are
patriotism and the sense of honor, the former, for our purposes, to be
regarded as the sum of the affections a people has for that which is
its own; the second a sum of those feelings and attitudes, the
emotional root of which is _pride_. These feelings are the affective
basis of the idea of _nationalism_.
Patriotism, or love of country or feeling of loyalty toward country,
is a highly complex emotion or mood, and its object, an ideal
construction, is formed by a process of abstraction in which certain
qualities of home, environment, social objects selected by those
feelings are made over into a composite whole.
Patriotism is
immediately connected with the fact that men, by some biological or
other necessity are formed into groups, in which the consciousness of
the individual in regard to the group and its members and its habitat
is different from the consciousness in regard to everything outside.
Patriotism is devotion to all that pertains to the group as a separate
unit, and its form and intensity are dependent upon what the group as
a unit does. The size and organization of the group to which the
patriotic feeling may go out may, it is obvious, differ widely.
There appear to be five more or less distinct and different factors in
patriotism; or, we might say, five or more objects of attachment, the
love of which all together constitutes patriotism. These objects are:
home, as physical country; the group as collection of individuals;
mores, the sum of the customs of a people; country as personality or
historical object, and its various symbols; leaders or organized
government or state, its conventions and representations.
The deepest of all strata in the very complex feeling of patriotism,
one which is concerned in every relation among nations, is the
devotion to, or habituation to--or we might say identity with--the
great complex of ideals, feelings, and the like which make up the
customs, folkways, mores or ethos of a group. The individual as a
conscious person is to such an extent created by these conscious
factors that we find that the reality sense is in part produced by
them. We have already referred to the belief on the part of many
peoples that they alone are real. Foreigners with different mores
probably always seem less real than our own people: they may even be
looked upon as automata, as not being moved by the feelings and
purposes that we ourselves have. The language of the foreigner, the
uneducated man is inclined to think of as having no meaning. Every
group has its own ways, and whatever else war may be, it is in every
case an argument for the superiority of the ways of the group. Each
group in war feels that its own most intimate possessions, its
morality and its genius are attacked. It guards these instinctively,
and a part of the purpose of aggression is the desire to make these
things prevail in the world, because they are felt to be the only
right, true and sensible ways. This preference for our own ways, and
participation in them, is the basic fact of nationality.
The feeling of patriotism is thus primarily an æsthetic appreciation
(or at least an immediate and intuitive one) of the totality of the
life of the group. Just as standards of normality and artistic form in
regard to the human person and its adornment vary from group to group,
and are produced in the consciousness of the group, so there is a
reaction of pleasure to, and attachment for, the whole of the life
that surrounds the individual. This appreciation is wider than moral
feeling, which indeed is in part based upon it, and is a sense of the
fitness of any act to belong to the whole of the conduct that promotes
the welfare of the group.
Patriotism is best known, or at least it is most celebrated, as an
attachment to the native land as _place_. This is the poet's
patriotism. It is, however, something more than a mere love of the
homeland as landscape, and we cannot, indeed, separate out any pure
love of physical country. The love of country seems to be an expansion
of the attachment to home, as the place in which the family relations
are experienced. The sense of place is the core of the love of home,
but it is supplemented and reënforced by the personal affections. The
attachment to place has also its biological roots, the sense of
familiarity of place being, of course, as the basis of orientation, a
deep element in consciousness. Fear of the unknown increases the
attachment to the known. The land as the source of livelihood is
loved, and there are also older elements in the love of the land as is
shown by myths and folklore. There is in it the idea of ownership but
also the idea of belonging to the land. So there is both the filial
and the parental attitude in patriotism. As fatherland or motherland
country is superior to and antecedent to us; as possession it is
something to hold and to transmit, to improve and to leave the impress
of our work upon. As historic land there is the idea of sacred soil,
of land which persists through all time. Ancestor worship enters; the
soil as the resting place of forefathers acquires not only a religious
meaning, but there is attached to it such feeling of an æsthetic
nature as is attached to everything that is full of tradition. The
protective attitude is prominent in this patriotic love of land. There
is in it the fear of invasion, a sense of the sacredness and
inviolability of the body of a country when it has once been
established as an historical entity. A study of the psychology of
invasion and of homesickness would no doubt throw further light upon
the still unknown aspects of the intricate moods of home love.
A third element in patriotism is social feeling. This is primitive,
but whether it is a herd consciousness or a radiation of the social
feelings connected with blood relationship and community of immediate
practical interests it is not especially important to decide in this
connection, except that the assumption of a specific herd instinct as
distinguished from social feeling or instinct appears to be
unnecessary. Loyalty of the individual to the group, which is
accompanied by or is based upon intensified or ecstatic feeling is one
of the strongest elements of patriotism. Social feeling as an
attachment to the widest group, the nation, is in general a latent
feeling or an undeveloped one. We see it becoming active and intense
only under circumstances in which the whole group is threatened or for
some other reason is compelled to act as a unit. The recent psychology
of the soldier shows us that absolute devotion to or absorption in the
whole may be produced automatically by the proper stimuli, and may be
controlled as the mechanism of morale, and that elementary sensations
enter into it. The wider social consciousness as devotion to the whole
group, the nation, is based upon such reactions, and can probably not
be fully, developed without them.
This transformation of the individual is something desired and sought
by the individual. It comes as a fulfillment of impulses that are
latent in the social life, and these impulses are tendencies to seek
exalted states of social feeling, rather than to perform specific
social functions. War is seized upon by the social consciousness, so
to speak, as an opportunity to extend itself and become more intense,
and indeed in war we see the social consciousness performing a work of
genius, overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles and aversions.
Under such circumstances, social feeling becomes strongly fortified
against many suggestions that tend to break it down. An intense
ferocity is directed toward any disloyal member of the group, a
fictitious character may be attributed to the enemy, and there is an
imaginative interpretation of all his acts in a manner favorable to
uniting the sentiment of the group. This does not appear to be merely
a defensive reaction or a result of fear, but an awareness of the
precarious condition of the social feeling itself, when it is widely
extended. In its moments of most extreme and fanatical intensity it is
likely to be most unstable. It has been said that the surest way to
break down social feeling is to make it include too much. The
conditions of war always create that danger. Patriotism is greatly
intensified, but it is in danger of collapse. The mild patriotism and
yet secure cohesion of peace is replaced by a social consciousness
increased in breadth and depth, but which is liable also to sudden
contraction. All nations when at war appear to be quite as much afraid
of themselves as they are of the enemy. It is in part this
susceptibility of social feeling to rapid and extreme variation that
makes patriotism so mysterious a force. It may be extended in a moment
to unite supposed incompatibles, or again apparently strongly cemented
groups may fall into disunion. This seems to be due to the fact that
social feeling is plastic and is subject to control and is a force
and not merely an instinctive reaction.
The fourth element of patriotism is devotion to leader, to government,
or to the idea of state. Devotion to leader must have been one of the
earliest forms of loyalty. The prestige of the leader is acquired as
the result of any action of the group under stimuli that produce
either fear or anger. Just as the necessity for strong action creates
the leader out of average humanity, so continuation of this necessity,
that is the whole historical movement of the life of the group such as
a nation continues to add elements of prestige to leadership. The
exaltation and typically to some extent the deification of the leader
is a natural consequence or aspect of the dramatic life of the group.
The leader becomes symbolic of the group, and of its purposes and
meaning, so that in devoting itself to a leader the people do more
than sustain an emotional relation to a superior person.
They transfer
their own individual nature, so to speak, to the leader so that he
becomes the essence or the spirit of the people.
The dynasty is the connecting link between the leader as the object of
devotion of a people and the abstract idea of the state as an entity.
The prestige and all the supernaturalism contained in the ideas of
divine rights and divine descent that have become attached to the idea
of kings are transferred to the government, or extended to the
government or state. The illusion of superiority and remoteness is
kept up by various forms and ceremonials. Becoming an abstract form,
the organization or the office remaining while its personnel changes,
the state acquires the character of a religious object.
It takes on
the character of the eternal, while still it retains all the
persuasive and suggestive qualities that belong to individuals. The
idea of state thus commands a very high degree of loyalty, and is in a
sense itself a product of the feeling of loyalty. Once established the
state becomes a medium through which patriotism may be subjected to
control and also be manipulated for political ends. It can be
extended, transferred, contracted according to what at any time may be
subsumed under the government that has thus come to be the central and
coordinating factor in the object of patriotism.
Another element of patriotism appears in the form of a deep reaction
of the mind of the individual, usually under the influence of social
stimuli that take the form of artistic or dramatic situations, to the
idea of country as a historical personage. This stimulus may be
symbolic--the flag or any other emblem signifying the life or the
spirit of a country; or it may be concrete, historic, a story, and
this story, which is the content of the idea of country, is in general
a narrative assuming a certain artistic form in which facts are
treated at least selectively, and usually imaginatively.
This work of
portrayal of the life of a nation by its story is consciously or
unconsciously an appeal to the will; it is given artistic rather than
scientific form for this reason. Its purpose is to present a national
spirit, or ideal, or principle, and also to persuade the mind to
become loyal to this spirit of country.
All countries, as the object of the feeling of patriotism, tend to be
personified, and it is thus as a person that country commands the
deepest loyalty of the individual. Hence the personified representation of country whenever the will of the individual is
appealed to most strongly. Redier (30), a French writer, illustrates
this very clearly when he pleads that the interest of the motherland
must be placed first. It is not for liberty, or for the civilization
of the world that the French are fighting, he says, but for France,
"that most saintly, animated and tragic of figures." It is by this
process of personification of country that the patriotism of the
individual becomes most complete. He thus becomes loyal to a living
reality representing an idea, a spirit. To defend the honor and the
integrity of this person, one is willing to sacrifice everything that
is individually possessed, in causes that can affect one materially
in no important way. The desire for personal identity and immortality
may be transferred to country as thus idealized, and the individual is
satisfied to lose himself that country may live. The common man
realizes in a simple and concrete way, in regard to country, the
Hegelian conception of state as the reality of mind in the world.
About this idea of country held by the truly patriotic mind, as we
find it expressed in history and in literature, there grows up a
religious sentiment, which protects from criticism the qualities of
the ideal personage. A certain pathos of country attaches itself to
all who as great individuals represent country, and to all its
portrayals and symbols. All these symbols acquire a high degree of
suggestive force because of the depth of sentiment and the richness of
the content of the ideas that have produced them.
Patriotism, then, is a very complex idea and feeling which we realize
as love of country--or, as we might better say, it is an animation by
the idea of a very complex object which is country. It is a profound
attachment, rooted in the most original and essential relations, and
appears to be natural and necessary to every normal mind. The
individual consciousness is complete only by including the
attachments, in narrower and broader relations, to precisely the
elements that enter into patriotism--to place, to the fundamental ways
and appreciations of the social surroundings, to persons, to
authority, to traditions. The composite effects of these attachments
may be greater or smaller, as determined by a totality of conditions,
but the foundations of patriotism, whatever its object, are deep in
consciousness.
The presence and persistence of patriotism in the world as a deep and
intense feeling raises questions that are of both theoretical and
practical importance. Here we are interested mainly in the relation of
patriotism to war. There is a widespread view that may be expressed
somewhat as follows. Patriotism and internationalism or cosmopolitanism are two _opposites_. Patriotism delimits groups,
whether rightly or wrongly, and therefore produces antagonism in the
world, and either causes wars directly or maintains a continual threat
of wars. On the other hand there is cosmopolitanism, a very little too
much of which might destroy civilization by removing the inspiration
that country gives. Patriotism, standing for the integrity of historic
entities, makes the world a world of nations having separate and
conflicting wills. Thus we have a choice of evils--
between a world of
ardent, quarrelsome, but efficient groups and a world in which the
chief motive of progress, the vital principle of national growth, is
left out.
What is the truth about this? What is the relation of patriotism to
war? Confusion and difference of views are likely to arise from a
failure to distinguish in the idea of nationalism as a whole, between
two very different emotions and purposes.
Psychologically, patriotism
is a sum of affections. As such, it has a distinct character,
constitutes a mood, the possession of which may characterize an
individual, and dominance by which may be the main fact in life. As a
devotion to certain objects, this motive of patriotism enters into the
sphere of motives of war, but it does so mainly, in our view, as a
powerful and highly suggestible energy which becomes aggressive only
under the stimulus of threat to its objects. Patriotism is indeed
tolerant by nature, and one may well doubt whether a genuine love of
country is possible without a profound realization of the value of
other countries as objects of devotion, and of the validity of the
patriotism of every group. True patriotism must always be to some
extent devotion to patriotism itself as a progressive force in the
world, and it is, therefore, by the very fact of becoming intense and
pure, a motive of internationalism.
Such patriotism seems to be free from most of the delusions of
greatness that affect national consciousness. Its mood is optimistic
and its spirit tolerant and just. We should say that, instead of
causing wars, by any initiative of its own, it is itself caused by
wars. It grows in a medium of defensive attitudes. It may, of course,
play into the hands of all the aggressive motives of war; there are
always circumstances creating the illusion of danger, and it is
possible, even, that there would be little war if there were no
patriotism as love of country to support it. But on the other hand
patriotism itself does not seem to be a cause of war. We should say,
indeed, that patriotism, to the extent that it becomes intelligent and
is a devotion to an ideal of country, and so is not dominated and
influenced by other motives is a factor of peace in the world, and is
moral in its principles and its nature. This is not the place in which
to speak of internationalism as an ideal, but we may at least observe
how, conceivably, patriotism may be cultivated, be greatly deepened
and intensified, while at the same time and indeed because of this
deepening of patriotism all international causes are also served. Such
patriotism may leave us with the danger of wars, since it leaves us
with a world of individuals having wills and self-interests. But this
world, with such a danger of wars, would be better after all than a
certain kind of cosmopolitanism in a world such as, for example, might
be arranged by an unintelligent socialism.
_National Honor_
There is another aspect of nationalism, which is psychologically
distinct from patriotism as love of country, because primitively it is
based upon a different motive. Emotionally it is expressed finally as
national pride, as we use the word mainly with a derogatory
implication. Just as patriotic feeling is intensified and crystallized
by fear, and is in a sense an overcoming of fear, by devotion, so this
motive of pride rests upon a basis of jealousy and of hatred, and is
essentially a movement in which display is used to obtain prestige, to
overcome opposition and to defend consciousness against a sense of
inferiority. As a display motive it contains the feeling of anger,
and the impulses of combat, and its relation to the reproductive
motive is obvious. It is as an aspect of a deeply pessimistic strain
in national life, as a process in which an original and naïve sense of
reality and superiority, challenged and attacked and brought into the
field of opposition and criticism and thus negated by a feeling of
inferiority, that this motive becomes of special interest to the
psychology of nations and of war.
The roots of this pride and honor process we can find in the impulses
which lead groups to demonstrate power and prowess to one another, and
in the original feeling of reality which is accompanied by the belief
on the part of the group that its own ways are normal and right. We
might mention as significant the widespread belief on