“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.”
—Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Canto VI
Yikes. Am I that wretch?
Scott’s poem was inflicted on me in grammar school, and it’s bothered me ever since. It was during the 1950s at the height of the Joe McCarthy Red Menace lunacy. The principal of my school—P.S. 149 in Queens, New York City—was intent on molding the school’s hapless inmates into rabid little patriots. I tried to comply, even though my expressed patriotic fervor was contrived. I knew I was an American, just as I knew I was a nearsighted kid of Jewish/Italian ethnicity living in a lower-class apartment building in Jackson Heights. I was neither proud nor ashamed of any of these facts, because none had proceeded from my own accomplishments or misdeeds. They were just the way things were.
In any case, I’ve thought about that poem on and off ever since. I know I’m supposed to feel a swell of patriotic pride whenever I see an American flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or hear the national anthem, but I don’t. The flag is just a cloth symbol of a union that is not unified. The Pledge is an empty theistic ritual, and our anthem contains a rarely repeated but nonetheless revolting verse condemning the American slaves who fought against their enslavers in the War of 1812.
I’m not one of the “hate America” crowd, which I suspect comprises no more than a small subset of the far Left. I was born here and grew up here, and when the time came, I willingly completed my required (at the time) military service. I worked for a living, paid my taxes, and generally complied with federal, state, and local laws. I recognize and respect my duty of loyalty to the nation. Accordingly, I’m entitled to live here and partake in the services and opportunities available to any ordinary citizen. I’ve fulfilled my part of the social contract and expect America to reciprocate in kind.
But loyalty isn’t love. Deep down, I suspect that I do love my country, but it’s not clear. Loving something requires acceptance of all its flaws, and it becomes harder to hold onto that love when the flaws begin to dominate the relationship. I love America’s constitutional recognition of individual rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom from religion, freedom of assembly, and free elections. Yet all these rights are under attack by homegrown agents of autocracy, racism, xenophobia, theocracy, hypocrisy, venality, and outright stupidity. These agents and their followers are as much a part of the American family as you and me, comprising a significant component of our “leaders” and citizens. I see them as the disgusting side of the family.
So, what does the term America encompass? It’s more than just the territory within our geographic boundaries. It includes our entire population, including the tens of millions who embrace Donald Trump’s despicable mindset. It includes our demonstrably flawed political, legal, and economic systems. And it cannot be separated from our unique history: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Conventional (American) wisdom holds that our country is the best in the world, but the truth of that assumption depends on your criteria. Do we have the strongest and most technologically advanced military? No question. Do we have the best and/or most affordable medical coverage, lowest infant mortality, lowest incidence of poverty and homelessness, fewest number of persons incarcerated, smallest wealth gap between rich and poor, highest happiness and satisfaction rates? Not even close. Unless you’re Dr. Strangelove or a member of the wealthy elite, any claim that America is the best country in the world rings hollow.
Let’s look at patriotism. To most people, it’s simply the unconditional love of one’s native or adopted country. If this sounds laudable, consider the fact that most Russians consider themselves patriots. They express allegiance to a cruel, thieving despot who, along with his cronies, shamelessly exploits the general population and orders the imprisonment, torture, or murder of those who do not meekly assent to his dictates. Russian soldiers, from conscripts barely more than boys to the highest-ranking officers, routinely commit unspeakably vile atrocities. Yet most Russians love and support “Mother Russia,” simply because they were born and raised there. Their unconditional patriotism makes them passively complicit in the horrific behavior of their leaders and countrymen.
In her editorial “Is Patriotism a Humanist Value?” (Free Inquiry, August/September 2023), CFI President and CEO Robyn E. Blumner concludes:
Humanists should be patriots because expressing pride and love of America is a way to protect the best parts of this nation. It is a way to declare a shared stake in this democratic enterprise. It is a way to see each other as fellow citizens and not warring tribes. It is a way to advance the humanist ideals, established by humanist men who gave us a fighting chance to live as we each would choose.
I respectfully disagree. The way to protect the best parts of this nation is to express pride and love of only those best parts while acknowledging and repudiating the worst parts. American proponents of autocracy, theism, xenophobia, and dishonesty may be our fellow citizens, but they’re also enemies of everything humanism stands for.
Whether or not patriotism overlaps with humanism depends on your definition of patriotism. If the general dictionary definition applies, patriotism is simply the love of one’s country, for better or for worse. As such, it is no more a specifically humanist attribute than the love of coffee or motorcycles. You can be both a patriot and a humanist, or you can be one but not the other.
My concept of humanism encompasses compassion and concern for the well-being of all sentient creatures (human and otherwise), without elevating Americans (sentient and otherwise) above the rest. An unconditional embrace of all things American disregards the humanist values of reason, rational analysis, and judgment of moral principles by their consequences. Patriotism not grounded in humanist values is no less dogmatic than religion.
“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d, As home his footsteps he hath turn’d, From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; …