Patriotism

Is it possible to be patriotic without being nationalistic? As far as I can see the modern left/liberal consensus seems to be no. If you are one then you are almost inevitably going to be the other because the two are basically the same. But I think that's because the left takes a deformed version of the thing, the thing gone wrong, for the thing itself. Why is this? Could they be seeing what they want to see to justify a pre-conceived idea? I think that could well be so and the reason behind it is that they are primarily motivated by hate*. I don't say all, or even most, people tending to this belief system are like that but there are a number of people committed to the ideological left who are.  That is why they caricature love of one's country as antagonism towards other countries. This leads me to ask what their hatred is fundamentally of, and the most obvious answer seems to be that at root it is hatred of God. That, in fact, may be what the whole left wing project is based on.  I am sure there were originally nobler impulses at work, and there probably still are in the mix in many cases, but all the evidence from the French revolution onwards points to the fact that the prime motivation of the left, as in the dominating force behind it, is to banish God from the world.

I have put this to people on the left and most of them deny it while at the same time dismissing the idea of God as nonsense for children. Some even claim they would love for there to be a God and would gladly welcome evidence for it if there were any. But I find this disingenuous since there is plenty of evidence for God if one wants to find it. These people don't want to find it because they don't want there to be a God, and they don't want this because of what that would imply to their egos which are all important to them. They are rebels against truth because they cannot abide the idea that they are created beings with a duty to their Creator.

Patriotism means no more and no less than love of one's country. This includes its landscape, its people, its culture and its history but also something more, an indefinable spirit that nevertheless is clearly intuited by any real patriot. It is a natural and good human feeling. The man that does not love his country is not to be trusted because it is highly unlikely he can love anything. You may recognise certain things are wrong with the country but you do not fundamentally want to change it. It's the same as with a person. If you want to completely change a person you purport to love then you don't actually love that person at all. The patriot may hope for certain things to change but a root and branch transformation is the last thing he wants. When the left now claim to love England or America or wherever but want to radically transform them, or show no sign of concern that they are being radically transformed, you can bet your last dollar that they don't love those countries at all. What they want (love doesn't come into it) is an England or an America bent to the shape of their ideology because they are not concerned with real things but with abstractions and ideas. But this wouldn't be England or America any more because the result would be the same as in every other country on which they have imposed the same pattern, robbing each one of its innate individuality. Does love want to destroy the thing it loves?

This gives us a clue to what patriotism is. It is a concern with individuality. Many on the left don't seem to like real individuals but God does. He created us like that after all. Now, countries are not people but a true country does have this quality of individuality, and what patriotism is is a recognition of this quality and a desire to cherish it. Not to see it lost or trampled underfoot in the name of some so called higher uniformity. The fact that the true patriot, or I could just say the true person, loves his country does not mean that he looks down on other countries. In fact, I think that one true patriot would salute another, recognising a like minded individual. If I love my wife it doesn't mean I look down on you and your wife or dismiss the quality of your relationship. It's more likely I will respect that.

None of this means that patriotism cannot descend into nationalism but it is by no means a given. When love of one thing leads to hatred of another that's a corruption not a consequence. But then nor does it mean that all countries are necessarily equal. All are presumably valid on their own terms but some may be, at certain historical times, of more importance than others in the context of human development. I don't see how anyone could honestly deny this. But then patriotism is not about how important your country is. You love it for itself not for its achievements though you may well be proud of these and reasonably so.

I've written this piece in stream of consciousness mode and without an edit button switched on. It probably shows. But I hope the point I am trying to make comes through. Since this blog is by virtue of its subject fundamentally patriotic I thought I would attempt a brief and necessarily incomplete description of why patriotism is a good thing, and one that makes us more human not less so.


*I'm not happy about using this word but can't think of a better. What I really mean is 'againstness' or antipathy towards. Fundamentally it is that in a person which causes him to rebel against truth.