riddle@im4u.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (09/19/85)
Submitted for your consideration:
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.
-- Emma Goldman, "Patriotism," *Anarchism and Other Essays,* 1910
While I think that the word "patriotism" resembles the word "love" in that
it evokes many very dissimilar concepts, I would argue that the
nationalistic, militaristic streak Goldman describes has always been very
strong in what Americans mean when they talk about patriotism. I think that
a reverence for the land one lives on and the (worthy) traditions of one's
people -- perhaps what Gary Snyder calls "a sense of place" -- are essential
in any healthy society; but I repudiate any sort of patriotism based in a
belief that one people or one spot of land is inherently better than any
other.
That liberation movements -- even good ones (like the American Revolution,
maybe?) -- have to fall back on nationalism to unify their people is a
crying shame.
(For an alternative, look into the new ideas being developed under the term
"bioregionalism." Not only do the "bioregions" which are slowly being
defined have far more meaning than any national boundaries, they are
associated with new symbols lacking the taint of past war and oppression and
they explicitly reject the notion that one region could be somehow better
than another.)
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@sally.UTEXAS.EDU
--- Leaving the net soon: friends can write for my new snail-mail address.