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Donald Kagan ■ On Patriotism 135

they rebuilt the continent from the ashes. They country.” That does not require us to hate, con-
stood against and helped defeat the Soviet demn, denigrate, or attack any other country,
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
Communist government, which along with Nazi nor does it require us to admire our own uncrit- IDEAS IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Germany and Maoist China, was among the ically. Few countries have been subjected to as
most brutal regimes in history. They stopped the much criticism and questioning, even from its
slaughter in the Balkans while Europeans stood patriotic citizens, as our own.
by and watched, and they drove Saddam Hus- So distant are we from a proper understand-
sein from Kuwait and ultimately from his seat ing of patriotism that I sometimes hear people
of power as he prepared to resume his goal of say, “It is silly to be patriotic. Why should I love,
dominating the Middle East. support, and defend a country just because,
“People should think,” the late David Hal- quite by chance, I happened to be born there?”
berstam said from New York following the In fact, there should be a presupposition in
attacks, “what the world would be like without favor of patriotism, for human beings are
the backdrop of American leadership with all not solitary creatures but require organized
its flaws over the past sixty years. Probably, I societies if they are to flourish or even survive.
think, a bit like hell.” In my view it doesn’t take Just as individuals must have an appropriate
an American chauvinist to suggest that there self-love in order to perform well, and an
is some virtue in a country that has helped appropriate love of their families if both are to
save the world from Wilhelmian Germany’s prosper, so, too, must they love their country if
right-wing imperialism, Hitler’s Nazi regime, it is to survive. Neither family nor nation can
Japan’s militaristic domination, and Stalin’s flourish without love, support, and defense,
totalitarianism. Yet voices here and abroad and individuals who have benefited from those
from the world of “intellectual” orthodoxy institutions not only serve their self-interest in
continue to condemn and blame the United defending them but also have a moral responsi-
States, as they did throughout the Cold War. bility to give them that support.
These dissenters’ ideas have a wide currency 5 The assaults on patriotism, therefore, are
and reflect a serious flaw in American educa- failures of character. They are made by privileged
tion that should especially concern those of us people who enjoy the full benefits offered
who take some part in it. The encouragement by the country they deride and detest — its
of patriotism is no longer a part of our public opportunities, its freedom, its riches — but
educational system, and the cost of that omis- lack the basic decency to pay the allegiance
sion is now making itself felt. In the intellectual and respect that honor demands. For the rest
climate of our time the very suggestion brings of us, our own honor and our devotion to our
contemptuous sneers or outrage, depending nation’s special virtues require us to respect
on the mood of the listener. Many have been and defend these privileged people’s opportu-
the attacks on patriotism for its alleged nity to be irresponsible and subversive of our
intolerance, arrogance, and bellicosity, but safety — but nothing forbids us from pointing
that is to equate it with its bloated distortion, out the despicable nature of their behavior.
chauvinism. My favorite dictionary defines Free countries like our own, it seems to me,
the latter as “militant and boastful devotion to have an even greater need of patriotic citizens
and glorification of one’s country,” but a patriot than others. Every country requires a high
as “one who loves, supports, and defends his degree of cooperation and unity among its

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