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Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, language relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
, mostly
civic nationalism
Civic nationalism, also known as liberal nationalism, is a form of nationalism identified by political philosophers who believe in an inclusive form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, in ...
and sometimes
cultural nationalism
Cultural nationalism is nationalism in which the nation is defined by a shared culture and a common language, rather than on the concepts of common ancestry or race.
Cultural nationalism does not tend to manifest itself in independent movements, ...
.
Some manifestations of patriotism emphasize the "land" element in love for one's native land and use the symbolism of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
and the
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
– compare ''
Blut und Boden
Atrocity is a German heavy metal band from Ludwigsburg that formed in 1985.
History
First started in 1985 as Instigators and playing grindcore, Atrocity arose as a death metal band with their debut EP, ''Blue Blood'', in 1989, followed soon b ...
''.
Terminology and usage
An excess of patriotism in the defense of a nation is called
chauvinism
Chauvinism is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. It can be described as a form of extreme patriotis ...
; another related term is ''
jingoism
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...
''.
The English word 'Patriot' derived from "Compatriot," in the 1590s, from Middle French "Patriote" in the 15th century. The French word's "Compatriote" and "Patriote" originated directly from Late Latin Patriota "fellow-countryman" in the 6th century. From Greek Patriotes "fellow countryman," from Patrios "of one's fathers," Patris "fatherland." The term Patriot was "applied to barbarians who were perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive who had only a common Patris or fatherland." The original European meaning of Patriots applied to anyone who was a fellow countryman originated from that country regardless of the social-economic status.
History
The general notion of
civic virtue
Civic virtue is the harvesting of habits important for the success of a society. Closely linked to the concept of citizenship, civic virtue is often conceived as the dedication of citizens to the common welfare of each other even at the cost of t ...
and group dedication has been attested in culture globally throughout the
historical period
Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied through ...
. For the
Enlightenment thinkers of 18th-century Europe, loyalty to the state was chiefly considered in contrast to loyalty to the
Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
. It was argued that clerics should not be allowed to teach in public schools since their ''patrie'' was heaven, so that they could not inspire love of the homeland in their students. One of the most influential proponents of this classical notion of patriotism was
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
.
Enlightenment thinkers also criticized what they saw as the excess of patriotism. In 1774,
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
published ''The Patriot'', a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...
, who reported this comment in his ''
Life of Johnson
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy tran ...
'', does not provide context for the quote, and it has therefore been argued that Johnson was in fact attacking the false use of the term "patriotism" by contemporaries such as
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguabl ...
(the patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson spoke elsewhere in favor of what he considered "true" patriotism.
However, there is no direct evidence to contradict the widely held belief that Johnson's famous remark was a criticism of patriotism itself.
Cultural aspects
Culture is often an integral aspect of patriotism. Many patriotic people take pride in sharing a distinct, common culture, believing it to be central to their
national identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
and unity. Many are devoted to the preservation of their traditional culture and encourage
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural assi ...
. However, some of the more
civic
Civic is something related to a city or municipality. It also can refer to multiple other things:
General
*Civics, the science of comparative government
*Civic engagement, the connection one feels with their larger community
*Civic center, a comm ...
forms of patriotism tend to de-emphasize ethnic culture in favor of a shared
political culture.
Philosophical issues
Patriotism may be strengthened by adherence to a
national religion (a
civil religion
Civil religion, also referred to as a civic religion, is the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols (such as the national flag), and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places (such as monuments, bat ...
or even a
theocracy
Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deity, deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs.
Etymology
The word theocracy origina ...
). This is the opposite of the
separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
demanded by the Enlightenment thinkers who saw patriotism and faith as similar and opposed forces.
Michael Billig
Michael Billig (born 1947) is a British academic. He is Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, working principally in contemporary social psychology although much of his work crosses disciplinary boundaries in the socia ...
and
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Jean Paulette Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013) was an American ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the University of Chicago Divinity School with ...
have both argued that the difference between patriotism and faith is difficult to discern and relies largely on the attitude of the one doing the labelling.
Christopher Heath Wellman, professor of
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
at
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
, describes that a popular view of the "patriotist" position is robust obligations to compatriots and only minimal samaritan responsibilities to foreigners.
Wellman calls this position "patriotist" rather than "nationalist" to single out the members of territorial, political units rather than cultural groups.
George Orwell, in his influential essay ''
Notes on Nationalism'' distinguished patriotism from the related concept of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
:
By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, ''not'' for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Opposition
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
stated that "It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
wrote in his ''
The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first editio ...
'' that “The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which a person can be proud”
Kōtoku Shūsui
, better known by the pen name , was a Japanese socialist and anarchist who played a leading role in introducing anarchism to Japan in the early 20th century. Historian John Crump described him as "the most famous socialist in Japan".
He wa ...
, a famous Japanese
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
of the late 19th/early 20th century, devoted a large section of his widely read ''Imperialism, Monster of the Twentieth Century'' to a condemnation of patriotism. One of the many arguments is based on the
Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
value of empathy: "I am as convinced as
Mencius
Mencius ( ); born Mèng Kē (); or Mèngzǐ (; 372–289 BC) was a Chinese Confucianism, Confucian Chinese philosophy, philosopher who has often been described as the "second Sage", that is, second to Confucius himself. He is part of Confuc ...
that any man would rush without hesitation to rescue a child who was about to fall into a well... A human being moved by such selfless love and charity does not pause to think whether the child is a family member or a close relative. When he rescues the child from danger, he does not even ask himself whether the child is his own or belongs to another." Patriotism is used to dehumanize others who we would naturally have empathy for. He argues, "
triotism is a discriminating and arbitrary sentiment confined to those who belong to a single nation state or live together within common national borders", a sentiment cultivated and used by militarists in their drive for war.
Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...
have taken various stances regarding patriotism. On one hand,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
famously stated that "The working men have no country" and that "the supremacy of the proletariat will cause them
ational differencesto vanish still faster." The same view is promoted by present-day
Trotskyists
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a re ...
such as
Alan Woods, who is "in favour of tearing down all frontiers and creating a socialist world commonwealth." On the other hand,
Marxist-Leninists and
Maoists
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Chi ...
are usually in favour of
socialist patriotism
Socialist patriotism is a form of patriotism promoted by Marxist–Leninist movements.Robert A. Jones. ''The Soviet concept of "limited sovereignty" from Lenin to Gorbachev: the Brezhnev Doctrine''. MacMillan, 1990. Pp. 133. Socialist patriotis ...
based on the theory of
socialism in one country
Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged th ...
.
Anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
are known for their tendency to oppose patriotism, as exemplified by
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
, who stated:
Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
Region-specific issues
In the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, thinkers such as
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
have advocated a "
Euro-patriotism", but patriotism in Europe is usually directed at the
nation-state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
and more often than not coincides with "
Euroscepticism
Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek refor ...
".
Surveys
Several surveys have tried to measure patriotism for various reasons, such as the
Correlates of War The Correlates of War project is an academic study of the history of warfare. It was started in 1963 at the University of Michigan by political scientist J. David Singer. Concerned with collecting data about the history of wars and conflict among ...
project which found some correlation between war propensity and patriotism. The results from different studies are time dependent. For example, patriotism in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
before
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
ranked at or near the top, whereas today it ranks at or near the bottom of patriotism surveys.
Since 1981, the
World Values Survey
The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and what social and political impact they have. Since 1981 a worldwide network of social scientists have conducte ...
explores people's national values and beliefs and refer to the average answer "for high income residents" of a country to the question "Are you proud to be
nsert nationality". It ranges from 1 (not proud) to 4 (very proud).
See also
References
Further reading
* Charles Blatberg, ''From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First'', Oxford University Press, 2000. .
* Craig Calhoun, ''Is it Time to Be Postnational?'', in ''Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority Rights'', (eds.) Stephen May, Tariq Modood and Judith Squires. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. pp. 231–56.
* Paul Gomberg, “Patriotism is Like Racism,” in Igor Primoratz, ed., ''Patriotism'', Humanity Books, 2002, pp. 105–12. .
*
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
, “Appendix II: Citizenship and National Identity,” in ''Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy'', trans. William Rehg, MIT Press, 1996.
* Johan Huizinga, “Patriotism and Nationalism in European History”. In ''Men and Ideas. History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance''. Transl. by James S. Holmes and Hans van Marle. New York: Meridian Books, 1959.
*
Alasdair MacIntyre, 'Is Patriotism a Virtue?', in: R. Beiner (ed.), ''Theorizing Citizenship'', 1995, State University of New York Press, pp. 209–28.
* Joshua Cohen and
Martha C. Nussbaum, ''For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism'', Beacon Press, 1996. .
*
George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism"
in ''England Your England and Other Essays'', Secker and Warburg, 1953.
* Igor Primoratz, ed., ''Patriotism'', Humanity Books, 2002. .
* Daniel Bar-Tal and Ervin Staub, ''Patriotism'', Wadsworth Publishing, 1999. .
* Maurizio Viroli, ''For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism'', Oxford University Press, 1997. .
*
Gilbert K. Chesterton 1922 that America is "the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence."
*
John Witherspoon
John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794) was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States. Witherspoon embraced the concepts of Scottish common sense real ...
The Dominion of Providence Over The Passions of Man, Princeton May 17, 1776.
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Political terminology