It would be hard to find a word (unless it be democracy) about which
so many questions gather as now cling to the word
"patriotism."
Patriotism is praised as the highest virtue; it is also cursed as the
cause of war. Some think of it as the _sole_ cause of war. Some would
like to see it disappear for the reason that they believe it at best
an old and out-lived social virtue, now having become merely
ornamental and an obstacle to the true socialization of the world.
Some think patriotism still the center of the moral and the social
life.
This is not the place to attempt a psychological analysis of
patriotism, but we may at least try to enumerate the principal factors
in it, and say what we think patriotism as a virtue--or a vice--is.
_Patriotism in our view is normally loyalty to country as a
functioning unit in a world of nations. It is devotion to all the
aspects and functions of a country as an historical entity._ We must
think of these historical entities, moreover, as leading lives in
which, although their own ambitions for honor and greatness are
legitimate, there must be a practical recognition of the legitimacy of
similar interests on the part of all other nations, and in which the
recognition of the common interests of nations is also freely made.
Since nations perform no one single function and have no single motive
of life in their normal state, patriotism can be no devotion to a
single purpose or cause. Such patriotism as this, we may say, does not
antagonize internationalism. Loyalty to country is loyalty to the
functions and interests that properly belong to country.
The
individual, the family, the country and all intervening groups and
entities are natural formations. To each of these entities there is
due a loyalty precisely measured by the character of the functions
which these entities perform.
This view of patriotism is plainly, both in its theoretical aspect and
its practical consequences, widely different from those that end in
pure internationalism. Its essential feature is that it recognizes the
validity of all entities and groups about which deep feeling has grown
up. This means, of course, that as criteria of social values these
feelings are placed ahead of certain logical or scientific
considerations. Pure internationalism of the intellectual type
recognizes the validity only of the whole world group.
Nicolai, for
example, says that there is a morality and there are rights pertaining
to the individual and to the whole of humanity, but all intervening
groups are temporary and artificial. That, certainly, we should not
agree with. The coming greater coördination of the world we may
suppose will deepen and intensify patriotism, rather than diminish it.
The homogeneity toward which the biologists tell us we are tending and
ought to approach is one in which, it is likely, still sharper
national outlines may well appear. The ambitions, the functions, and
the culture of nations ought to be made clearer rather than be lost in
the coming internationalism. We shall still in the Hegelian sense find
our reality in and through the state. An aroused sense of the function
and worth of country will be the basis of patriotism.
Advancement
toward internationalism will be made by a generalized patriotism
rather than by outgrowing patriotism. That is, it is by passing from a
deepened loyalty to country through a sense of the validity and right
of the patriotism of all peoples that international social
consciousness will be developed.
So all those very numerous views of patriotism which assert that it is
only through a decline of patriotism that a rational international
order can ever be established, appear to be wrong. A fundamental
question is at issue here. It concerns in part the criteria of
valuation in the field of the social life. The kind of cosmopolitanism
and internationalism that demands the final abrogation of the
sentiment of patriotism is, as we have intimated, a rationalistic
doctrine. It is an attempt to extend objective principles into the
realm of social values. Reason tells us, they say, that we ought to
organize universally and obliterate national lines.
Reason tells us we
should make no distinction between ourselves and strangers, between
enemies and allies. But by the same rationalism we may break up any
loyalty. Patriotism is an inner, a spiritual force, and it has its
roots in moods and forms of appreciation which have a certain finality
about them, for the reason that they are deposits from the whole
course of human history. Veblen says it is a matter of habit to what
particular nationality a man will become attached on arriving at years
of discretion. That is true, and it is of course the whole secret of
loyalty. But it is not a matter of unimportance whether a man shall
become attached to any country. It is the dynamic power of loyalty
that is in question, if we consider its practical value.
Loyalty grows
because it has a use, which is related to the most basic feelings. It
is not a product of reason, and cannot justly be judged on purely
rational grounds.
Any political ideal, or any plan for a world order, that would
minimize patriotism is unnatural. The forms of socialism that do this
and the _laissez faire_ tendencies appear to have left out of the
reckoning some of the modes of evaluating experience which are most
basic. We may recognize all the excess of provincialism in the native
patriotism of the peasant, and all the egoistic motives in the
patriotism of the aristocrat and the militarist, but still we see no
place in the world for the man without a country. It is not yet the
workmen of the cities, who say that all men are brothers, who can lead
us to a better social order. Patriotism must be educated, modernized,
made more productive, but certainly its work is not yet done. It
cannot be cast aside as something archaic and only a part of the
ornamental and useless encumbrances of life. _It is not by weakening
loyalty to country, but by strengthening it, that internationalism
will be made secure._ If patriotism fits into modern life like sand in
the machinery, as Veblen says, we must see how patriotism may be made
to do better service.
Some views about patriotism which thus disparage it seem to be based
upon a biological conception of it. Not a few writers apparently think
of patriotism as a fixed trait of the human organism, even as a kind
of mendelian character unrelated to other social qualities. This trait
antagonizes social progress, but it is preserved because of secondary
values which it represents, such as moral or æsthetic values.
According to these views patriotism may be complex, but it acts like a
unitary character. It is subject, theoretically, to selection, but as
a matter of fact it remains a strong factor in the temperament of
nearly all races.
But in our view patriotism is something less precise than all this
would imply. It is a form in which the most fundamental and general of
desires are expressed, in becoming fixated upon their most natural and
necessary objects. It is an aspect of the whole process of development
of the affective life. Leaving out patriotism (if such a thing were
possible) would mean a break in the continuity of the social life. It
would leave one group of functions without their natural support in
desire. Economists sometimes seem to leave out of account the profound
emotional forces and the irresistible tendencies which make social
groups. They want organizations without the moods and impulses by
which alone social bodies are formed or sustained; and they expect to
see organization broken up or interest in it lost while all the
conditions that keep alive the passion for it are intact. Patriotism
and the existence of nations seem, however, to be the opposite sides
of the same fact. And we may assume that so long as nations exist, at
any rate, patriotism will exist, and one of the most necessary
functions of public education will be the regulation of the motives
and feelings which are contained in this sentiment.
Patriotism is first of all to be considered, then, as a phase of the
social life as a whole, rather than as an unique emotion or a special
variety of loyalty. It is a way in which the sum of tendencies that
enter into the social life become fixated upon certain qualities of
the environment, or upon certain objects. Patriotism will best be
understood in a practical way by observing its objects.
Patriotism is
a total mood; country is a total object. But the mood of patriotism
expresses varied desires, and the object of patriotism is a highly
complex and variable object. In being loyal to or devoted to country
in the sense which we usually mean when we say one is patriotic, we
are devoted to at least the following objects: 1) physical country as
home; 2) the ways, customs, standards and beliefs of the country; 3)
the group of people constituting the nation; and here race, social
solidarity, ideal constructions of an united people having common
purposes and possessions enter; 4) leaders; 5) country as an
historical entity having rights and interests--a living being having
experiences, ideals and characteristics. The educational problem is of
course the regulation of the attachment of the individuals of a nation
to these objects. In one sense this educational problem of patriotism
is nothing less than that of developing social consciousness itself.
It is precisely the task of fostering or creating in the child the
basis of all loyalty. Given a loyal mind in the child and a normal
environment, we need to be concerned but little about the causes and
the groups upon which that loyalty will expend itself, for the
conditions are all present for forming an attachment to every natural
group. Considered generically and psychologically there is no
patriotism, we say, marked off from everything else, and there is no
one object that excites patriotic loyalty. All educational influences
that strengthen attachment to home, all social feeling, devotion to
the ways of any group and obedience to its standards, respect for all
law and authority, all appreciation of historic relations, help to
develop patriotism, merely because country, in these aspects, is an
omnipresent object to which the feelings thus engendered will
automatically become to some extent attached.
The first task in the teaching of patriotism (first at least as
regards the obviousness of the need) is to give all children a vivid
sense of country as physical object, and a deep aesthetic appreciation
of this object--although of course this idea of physical country
cannot be detached from everything else. Each country has its
different problem. Ours is to create a total country, in the
imagination of the young. A German writer not long ago predicted that
the future of America lay in the direction of breaking up into a
little England, a little Ireland, and a little of the other
nationalities here represented. That particular danger may seem remote
enough, but in another way we do continue to be lacking in unity. Our
patriotism has been too local, and America, even after the great war,
is to some extent still a collection of geographical regions. New
England, the South, the Coast are more real to many than country as a
whole. Our great distances, and the impossibility of clearly imagining
them have necessarily presented obstacles thus far to a unified image
of country. The time may come, and perhaps soon, when such a divided
consciousness of country will be a grave flaw in our national life.
It must be a serious function of some kind of geography to give
reality to the idea of country, although of course we cannot separate
entirely geographical from historical idea of country.
The teaching of
the geography of the native land must be different from other
geography. Native land must have a warmth and home feeling about it
that other countries do not have, but as yet the psychological
conditions for this have apparently not been worked out.
With our
present facilities in pictorial art, the geographical element in the
idea of country seems controllable. The minds of children are
exceedingly impressionable in this direction. Intensity of feeling and
vividness of imagination are at the disposal of the educator. The love
of color, especially, must be used to make lasting impressions upon
the mind. We need to notice also that the idea of physical country
that enters most into patriotic feeling is not an idea of city streets
but of the open country. It is the country that inspires the strongest
home feeling, and it is the country that is the basis of the sense of
changelessness and eternity of native land, that is a strong element
in patriotic sentiment. This element of patriotism, it is plain, is
something aesthetic. It is not so much a moral loyalty to country that
is inspired by the everlasting hills, as an aesthetic love of it as
the home land. This aesthetic love of the home land is a response to
such stimuli as the beautiful arouses everywhere. It is susceptible,
therefore, to all the influences of art--of music, picture, symbol;
these must all be employed in teaching patriotism. The theme of home
is especially sensitive to the effects of music. It is this idea of
home, enlarged and enriched by pictorial representation of country,
deeply impressed and influenced by music, and unified and imbued with
the feeling of personal possession by the story of country that is the
core of patriotic feeling. It is the function of art, especially of
music, to help to make the home feeling of the child normal and
enthusiastic--to raise it above the stage of being an
"anxiety of
animal life," as Nicolai terms the primitive love of home. Art must
help to remove the fears and depressions that may lurk in the idea of
home, which are great obstacles to the development of the higher
devotions. It is the lack of normal love of home in the city, we
should say, that makes socialism and all forms of internationalism
that breed so rapidly there such dangerous moods in a democracy.
Without true home love, we may conclude, the wider loyalties can never
be quite wholesome, although they may be intense and fanatical.
The second element in patriotism we identify as the love of, or
loyalty to, the sum of the customs, beliefs, and standards that make
up the _mores_ of a people. A peculiarly perplexing educational
problem arises, since there are two opposite evils to be avoided We
may too readily cultivate a spirit which either takes the form of a
narcissistic love of one's own ways, or which, extraverted, so to
speak, becomes a fanatical ambition to impose one's own culture upon
the world; or, on the other hand we might become too self-critical,
too cosmopolitan, and too receptive toward all foreign culture.
National conceit, complacency and destinism face us in one direction,
the danger of losing our identity and our individuality and our
mission in the other. These problems of course confront all nations;
they are especially urgent in America, because of the composite nature
of our national life and the rapid changes that take place in it, and
also because of the ideal nature of the bond that holds us together.
We are still a somewhat inchoate and flowing mass of social elements,
imperfectly coördinated, manifestly, yet deeply united by ideals which
appeal to very deep emotions. Our work is to maintain social
solidarity, preserve and educate certain fundamental qualities of our
national life which are our real claims to individuality as a people.
These essential traits, perhaps because of our newness as a form of
civilization, appear to be less clearly defined, less definitely
represented in institutions, and to be more abstract than the
qualities that make up the essential character of other peoples.
Our educational problem is, naturally, different from all others. We
are committed to an idea of liberty. We make this principle of freedom
the dominant in all our national life. We have not tried, and cannot
consistently attempt to centralize our educational institutions very
much, or even allow our culture to become crystallized into a definite
type, for this would be almost as bad as denying our principle of
religious freedom. But we cannot, in the other direction, become too
diversified intellectually, and still less in regard to more
fundamental aspects of life, for this would break up our unity
altogether, or determine it more and more in the direction of
political coercion. Thus far, it appears, it has been our great virtue
as a people that we have remained united by emotional forces, or by
the suggestive power of an idea. Sooner or later we shall need to see
whither our present tendencies lead, and education must in all
probability be put to work to control and regulate the elements that
make for unity and for disruption in our life. _Our work as educators
will be to maintain a working harmony in the affective and instinctive
life of the people._ We need now, and we shall need more and more,
religious, moral and aesthetic unity in our life as a nation--not a
forced and superficial agreement, but a deep harmony of ideals and
moods. This purpose must never be lost sight of by the educator. It
must be made to pervade all our educational philosophy and all our
plans for the school. This educational problem exists of course
everywhere in some degree, and in regard to all manner of social
groups. But American life as a whole is peculiarly a growth in which
diverse and even divergent elements must continue to be brought
together and held together through the power of ideas which are
subject to many influences. Diversity and differentiation are added as
fast as the process of assimilation can be carried on.
There can be no
closing up of differences in a final perfection and security.
Must we not, then, make the education of instincts and feelings, and
the control of the basic moods, rather than the development and
stimulation of specialization and differentiation our first and chief
concern? Must we not do this even at a loss of efficiency in some
directions, if necessary? Certainly we must not go too fast nor too
far towards industrialism. To control any tendency to over
differentiation and industrialism that is now likely to occur we must
have a broad humanitarianism and a humanistic ideal of culture (by
which we do not mean classicism). _The sharing of all experiences that
represent our spirit and purpose and American ideas, and equal
opportunity to realize them, must be our thought in planning our
educational work._ The future of America may well depend upon our
power, or upon the power of our original idea, to hold people together
by the essential moods in which our American ideas are represented.
The production, out of these elemental moods, of common interests on a
high level will be, we take it, the only preventive in the end of the
growth of common interests on a low level, which is always threatened
in democracies, and is the way democracies tend to destroy themselves
by their democracy. Education in the fundamentals of industrial life,
in social relations, in play and in art, in religion, is what we most
need--the latter, we may conclude, most of all. We must have in some
way a greater religious unity and more religion, not by attempting an
impossible amalgamation of creeds as was promulgated by some of the
founders of the New Japan, but by an education that includes and
brings forth all that is common in religion. That at least is the only
kind of unity that offers hope finally of making a world safe with
democracy in it. This is not a plea for a back-to-nature movement, for
the simple life, for a life which tends away from industrialism.
Industrialism will go on, if for no other reason, because pastoral or
agricultural peoples would soon be at a disadvantage in an industrial
world as it is organized now, for want of rapid increase in
population. But it is implied that industry itself must be made
suitable for the democratic life. It means that we must go back of the
identities of language and obedience to common laws, and take as our
educational foundations that which American life is in truth based
upon: physical power and motor freedom, the sense of liberty, the
colonial spirit of comradeship and devotion to common cause, the ideal
of an abundant and enthusiastic life. Merely becoming conscious of
these and observing their meaning and their place in our national life
is in itself a large contribution to the sources out of which
patriotism may be drawn. _When our patriotism is sincere enough so
that we shall be milling to sacrifice for country our religious
intolerance and bigotry, our social antipathies, and our industrial
advantages, we shall have a morale which for peace or for war will be
wholly sufficient._
Must our ambition be to teach American children that American ways are
the best, and that these ways ought to be established in the world?
There is both an evil and a good, both an absurdity and a sublime
loyalty in the view which all nations have, that their own culture and
life are the best. This conceit is in part a product of isolation, and
is pure provincialism. But it is also of the very essence of the
reality feeling and the sense of solidarity of peoples and of their
loyalty to country. It must not be dealt with too ruthlessly. There is
a primitive stratum of it that must remain in all peoples. Nations,
however benighted, will not be dispossessed of this idea, but
experience and education will make nations more discriminating so that
they can at least see what is essential and what is superficial in
their own characteristics. Certainly whatever is ethical in our
foundations we, and all other peoples, will be expected to hold to. We
feel it a duty to spread our moral truth abroad and our mores are
necessarily right for us, and this idea of rightness of mores must
imply a desire to make them prevail in the world. We may recognize,
abstractly, other standards of conduct, but there is something in
moral belief which, of course, cannot voluntarily be changed, and
which must stand for the ultimately real in consciousness so long as
it is held to be so by the mass of the people. This must extend also
to æsthetic standards, and to all final judgments of values to some
extent.
For these reasons we must suppose that the spirit of competition among
nations, certainly so far as it concerns the ambition for empires of
the spirit, must remain. Belief on the part of a people in the
superiority of their own culture cannot and should not be eliminated.
By this spirit the good, we may be sure, will prevail, but prevail
only through opposition and competition. There can be no real
compromise in the field of these moral possessions and appreciations.
_We_ must be Americans, and react with American ideas.
True
nationalists everywhere appear to recognize and to be guided by this
truth. We cannot voluntarily lay aside our own beliefs nor help
believing they are right, although we may see that were we differently