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136 Unit 2 ■ Appealing to an Audience

people if it is to achieve the internal harmony single people, the building of a legitimate
that every good society requires. These must patriotism, we will have selfish individuals,
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
rest on something shared and valued in com- heedless of the needs of others, reluctant to
mon. Most countries have relied on the com- work toward the common good and to defend
mon ancestry and traditions of their people as our country when defense is needed. In tell-
the basis of their unity, but the United States ing the story of the American experience we
of America can rely on no such commonality. must insist on the honest search for truth; we
We are an enormously diverse and varied peo- must permit no comfortable self-deception or
ple, composed almost entirely of immigrants evasion. The story of this country’s vision of
or the descendants of immigrants. We come a free, democratic republic and of its struggle
from almost every continent, our forebears to achieve it need not fear the most thorough
spoke — and many of us still speak — many dif- examination and can proudly stand compar-
ferent languages, and all the races and religions ison with that of any other land. It provides
of the world are to be found among us. The great the basis for the civic devotion and love of
strengths provided by this diversity are matched country we so badly need.
by great dangers. We are always vulnerable to Some critics of America’s efforts to defend 10
divisions that can be exploited to set one group itself against its current enemies, who insist
against another and destroy the unity and har- that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are too
mony that have allowed us to flourish. costly and that success is unattainable, who
We live in a time when civic devotion has demand that we withdraw from one or both
been undermined and national unity is under of these battlefronts whatever the cost, claim
attack. The individualism that is so crucial a that they are no less patriotic than others. To
part of our tradition is often used to destroy be sure, a patriot may disagree with the policy
civic responsibility. The idea of a common and strategy of the government and legiti-
American culture, enriched by the diverse ele- mately try to argue for change. He or she may
ments that compose it but available equally not, however, attempt to justify opposition to
to all, is also under assault, and some are that policy and gain political advantage from
trying to replace it with narrower and polit- so doing by tendentiously misdescribing the
ically divisive programs that are certain to facts, by insisting that the war has been lost
set one group of Americans against another. when it plainly has not. The war in Iraq was
The answer to these problems, and our only not lost, although opponents of that war, even
hope for the future, must lie in a proper edu- as the situation improved, rushed to declare
cation, which philosophers have long put at America defeated. They offered no plausible
the center of the consideration of justice and alternative to what turned out to be the suc-
the good society. We rightly look to education cessful strategy and took no serious notice of
to solve the pressing current problems of the dreadful consequences of swift withdrawal
our economic and technological competition in defeat. They seemed to be panicked by the
with other nations, but we must not neglect possibility of success and eager to bring about
the inescapable political and ethical effects withdrawal and defeat before success could
of education. We in the academic community get in the way. Such are the actions of defeat-
have too often engaged in miseducation. If ists and political opportunists; they can never
we ignore civic education, the forging of a be called patriotic. . . .

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