Patriotism as a command to be who the bosses say you are
My father is a right-wing patriot. With the slight emotion of which he is sometimes capable (in German-American culture the show of emotion, especially among men, is generally suspect, considered ‘irrational’, unless it is anger at recognizable targets, like ideological national ‘traitors’), he quoted to me with the approbation of a directive Walter Scott's poem, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!',” adding, “because if you don’t love your country, you are betraying your self.”
Modern nationalism did draw on romanticism (in Germany, and elsewhere), and on claims and demands of authenticity, like Polonius’s “to thine own self be true.” Should I take seriously such a demand, as a principle of ethics? Don’t we all? Indeed, I doubt most ethical demands people iterate, and find this agnostic disposition suitable as a writer and sometime scholar. But suppose I take it seriously. The demand is both to be faithful to whatever I love, and that I should recognize my “desire” as something that has been defined for me.
Nationalism commonly does this. The Israeli national anthem (translated) reads, “As long as in the heart within, / The Jewish soul yearns, … / Our hope is not yet lost, / To be a free nation in our land, / The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.” In this patriotic song, the singer affirms that his identity authorizes the desire for the realization of the national project. You are required to love your country (and its government, and what it does in your name) because that is who you are. Otherwise, you are betraying — yourself.
Are there other uses of this romanticism and its discourse of authenticity? The other possibility is that of the modern artist, who very well might not be a patriot. His soul is alive, not dead, because of what he loves, which doesn’t have to be your own government and its wars. Maybe it’s some patriots whose souls are dead, because they can only really love an ideology.
Where there are fathers who believe they can prescribe to their sons the law of their own desire — what do we say about that? It is fitting, I suppose, that this same father demanded that I fulfill his ambitions for my life, succeeding at a career that made good sense to him, never asking what I wanted in life, and when he learned of it, pretending it wasn’t real. I devoted my life to learning and study, and became a writer. But maybe I forgot something: I did not sacrifice myself to a patriarchy in a war, which doesn’t need a good reason but only a blind love of a national idea, the fantasy that realizes itself in a substitute religion.
And yet it was so quaint and charming, that this aging father revealed that he always wanted me to realize my inner-most desire. His only mistake was the slight one of believing, and assuming, that he had every right to take it as having been decided, apart from me and doubtless before my birth, what that desire and its concrete ambitions could be.
His demand that I love “America” was implacable. I wondered if that too is an Idea. I think it is mainly an idol. Idolators sacrifice those they love. They sacrifice people to great things, and as they do so leave trails of bodies. I note that you can love (things or persons) without liking them. We are supposed to honor every religion, says every religion. Maybe the military officers who are the real masters when push comes to shove only want allegiance, whether you like it or not. I like some American things. I don’t like fascism.
Authenticity goes with autonomy. Authentic compliance is an oxymoron. Patriotism is a disease.