PART IIITHE BELIEFS OF PATRIOTISM
CHAPTER VThe Country As Protector of Self
Patriotism has reasons upon which it rests; it is not a mere instinctive reaction, nor yet simply a habit.[66]Thought exists, and men think. Graham Wallas says that there is an impulse to think. “This independent action of Intelligence is, I believe, in its simplest forms as ‘natural’ to us, as much due to inherited disposition, as is the working of anyone of the usual list of instincts.”[67]There is a rationale of patriotism. Patriotism may be unreasoned, but is not for that necessarily unreasonable. It may coincide with the passions of the masses, but may nevertheless rest on logical grounds, and on ideals. It may be the object of conscious choice. The treatment of the immigrant shows that we have a belief that patriotism can be chosen by the individual. We insist on the loyalty of the German-American, which being interpreted means that we are demanding loyalty to a country of choice rather than to the country of birth. And for those born Americans, we adopt the injunction of Tennyson,
“Love thou thy land, with love far-broughtFrom out the storied Past, and usedWithin the Present, but transfusedThro’ future time by power of thought.”[68]
The fact that men do think and have ideals is one of the very reasons why patriotism is now so strong.
What are the reasons urged why one should be patriotic? One belief is that one owes his earthly salvation to his country. It is a belief that expresses on the level of consciousness the impulse to seek safety and help. Men believe that the country is the protector in this present world of all the values of life. It is the feeling that Spencer expressed when he apostrophized the state in the following language: “I supposed you were to act the part of an Argus-eyed and Briareus-armed guardian, ever watching over my interests, ever ready to step in and defend them; so that whether sleeping or waking, absorbed in business or immersed in pleasure, I might have the gratifying consciousness of being carefully shielded from injury.”[69]Webster appealed to the same feeling in his reply to Hayne: “It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad.... It has been to us all a copious fountain of national,social, personal happiness.”[70]And the patriot feels that for the protection that he has received he must show his gratitude. In return for the blessings of the country, he will offer up the sacrifice of patriotism. If one asks the plain man why he is patriotic, why he thinks, for instance, that he ought to enlist, the answer that is often made is that, “The country has done a lot for me, and now she needs me. I am going to do what I can for my country.”
The country affords protection within the group that it organizes. And for this reason, the citizens will support the state. They feel that government is a good thing; it guarantees justice and fair play. And patriotism with them will grow out of that feeling. It will, of course, be a give and take affair. It will not be selfless, altruistic devotion. Patriotism of this kind demands that justice be consistently dispensed. Most men will not long serve a state that treats them unfairly. No patriotism will survive flagrant and continued injustice. And, in truth, why should it? Green states the answer: “If the authority of any government—its claim on our obedience—is held to be derived not from an original covenant, or from any covenant, but from the function which it serves in maintaining those conditions of freedom which are conditions of the moral life, then no act of the people in revocation of a prior act need be reckoned necessary to justify its dissolution.If it ceases to serve this function, it loses its claim on our obedience.”[71]
A country is a peace unit. And men will welcome it as such, for there is in men an impulse to peace. The state in modern times arose in part as a keeper of the peace. The church was once the power that policed Europe, and when that was so, men gave the church their supreme allegiance. But the time came when the fear of God was no longer a sufficient power to keep men in order, so it became necessary for some other agency than the church to take up the task. Semi-official bodies arose whose business it was to preserve peace, but they passed away. There was then no power to keep the lawless forces in check. The nobles of feudalism fought with one another, and were petty and irresponsible tyrants over their people. Their regime became unbearable. Consequently the people united with the kings, and a central power was established that stopped the wars of the nobles and cities, and gave peace.
The state within its boundaries is the preserver of law and order. And the discharge of that function recommends the state to its citizens. Hobbes[72]exalted the state because of his desire for order. The England of his day was torn by civil war. Even J. S. Mill[73]expressed somesympathy with speculative Toryism, as for instance it appeared in Wordsworth, because what it meant in such a case, Mill said, was the proposition that man ought to be governed. Patriotic eloquence takes account of the benefit that the state affords as the preserver of the peace. Josiah Quincy, Jr., called for patriotic loyalty to country on the ground that in it “Each individual, of whatever condition, has the consciousness of living under known laws, which secure equal rights, and guarantee to each whatever portion of the goods of life, be it great or small, chance or talent or industry may have bestowed.”[74]
The civilized life itself at present depends upon the state. The word civilization is derived from a stem meaning “state.” Civilization is that which is possible to men in states, that is, where peace, law, and order prevail. The state has been a tremendous gain because it has been a larger integration of men, a larger unit of coöperation. Just that is its primary function,—to make it possible for men to live together. And without the exercise of that function by the state, we should be likely to be plunged back again into the chaos of petty warring factions. Now patriotism gets connected with this desire that government be preserved. The patriot is very apt to feel that ifhiscountry should be destroyed, it would be a blow at the very foundations of all government and safety. He connects civilization with his own state, and feels that, “... they who assail the idea, the ideal, of the country itself, assail all civilized life and, so far forth, are suicides as well as traitors.”[75]
But the state does not stop with the bare maintenance of law and order. It does other things which are believed to be for the general welfare. It looks out for education, transportation, sanitation, the care of the infirm, and so forth; it works for better social, industrial, and class conditions. The state, in other words, is felt to have a right to do all those things which will promote the welfare of mankind. Mill said, “... it is not admissible that the protection of persons and that of property are the sole purposes of government. The ends of government are as comprehensive as those of the social union.”[76]And Aristotle[77]intimated that the state should not only make bare existence possible, but should promote the good life.
The result has been that men have taken an attitude toward the state very much like the attitude that they have taken toward God. To many people the state has become God. They feel that all the values of life depend upon it, as Plato[78]felt that all the values of life depended upon the state that he described. That does not mean thatthey go directly to the state for everything that they want; they do not do that with God. They simply expect the state somehow to guarantee these values, and to supply them only as a last resort. But they will go to it for everything that they want and which they can secure in no other way. In the following quotation, the state is described in terms that might almost refer to Providence: “No American boy or girl ... lived a day, even, at the beginning of his life, when he was not protected by the law of the United-States. From that moment the United-States watched over him in ways perhaps which he never thought of. Perhaps the school in which these words are read would not have existed except for the United-States laws with regard to education. Very likely the bread and butter which the boy had for breakfast could never have existed but that the country called the United-States had made laws and carried on government in such ways that the grain could be raised, that the cattle could be fed, and the butter made. It is in a thousand such ways as this that the country in which we live takes care of us in every hour of our lives.... The tie which binds you and me to the country which takes care of us is a tie as real and it involves duties as distinct as the ties which bind a boy to his mother to whom he owes his life and who has always taken care of him.”[79]What happens when a country towards which men have felt in this way, calls for the allegiance of its citizens? Their loyalty will be accorded it in the same measure as the completeness with which they have trusted to it.
The state is the only institution in a given area that embodies the general will, and consequently it federates the largest number of loyalties among the people who live there. A class organization could not federate so many loyalties. It could not be done, for instance, by syndicalistic organizations.[80]If a man were a member of all such organizations that he was eligible to, his whole life would still lack unity. There must, then, be something that will unify the life of the individual, and unify the whole of society. The fact of the matter is that the state at the present time is, and in the predictable future is likely to be, the factor which does this. And it is therefore likely also to continue to draw the supreme loyalty of men.
One kind of patriotism is, then, based upon the belief that the country is the preserver of law and order. If necessary, the patriot will place himself at the service of the state in order to help it discharge its function as a police power. And he feels it to be necessary also to show his patriotism in his own obedience to the laws. Inthe Crito,[81]Socrates, who had shown his patriotism upon the battlefield, showed it again by submitting himself to the laws of that country which by its institutions had nourished and protected him. Bosanquet cites this action of Socrates, and himself adds the comment: “That is one thing; true patriotism is the law-abiding spirit.”[82]
The state also acts as a protector against aggressions from without, and on this account men cling to it. The patriotfearsother nations; he believes that they are actuated by sinister designs. The foe in patriotic songs and poetry is always ‘haughty’ and ‘wicked.’ He believes also that if the opportunity is presented, they will work those sinister designs against his country. Nor is the fear altogether groundless. To say the least, most governments cannot be trusted to look after the interests of their competitors as well as they look after their own, and the way in which the world is at present organized makes it seem necessary for each nation to look out for itself. Even Russell says that “the fear by which the State is strengthened is reasonable under present circumstances.”[83]Then why should not the state protect its own interests and the interests of its citizens? The citizen himself will not admit that the state’s protection should simply be limited to the prevention of the harm that his fellow-citizens might do. He will say: “When we agreed that it was the essential function of the state to protect—to administer the law of equal freedom—to maintain men’s rights—we virtually assigned to it the duty, not only of shielding each citizen from the trespasses of his neighbours, but of defending him, in common with the community at large, against foreign aggression.”[84]The efforts to provide protection has indeed proved to be too big a job for even the state, acting alone, and has led to alliances between states. Such alliance is deemed essential. Diplomatic isolation could not now be tolerated by scarcely any government or population but the most primitive. Perhaps in this very direction lies a way to world internationalism. But the protection is still state protection; the alliances themselves are the results of the activities of states.
The fear of other states sometimes gets expressed as the belief thatexistenceitself, both national and personal, is threatened. Loisy gives vent to this belief: “Are we then right to be patriotic, even at the risk of being less or not at all Christian? Doubtless; because our only chance of living is bound up with our patriotism.”[85]What he seems to fear is French extermination. But more often the patriot believes that by his loyalty, his own and his country’s freedom are preserved. Patriotism is a demand for freedom. Zimmerman a long time agopointed out that nearly every people glories in its real or supposed freedom. “Not a few nations,” he says, “are seen resembling the primitive Greeks, in overvaluing themselves on their real liberty; and others, like the degenerate Greeks, priding themselves only on the shadow of an antiquated liberty.”[86]The United States came into existence only after a severe fight for liberty, and consequently American patriotism has had the ideal of freedom deeply impressed upon it. The words of Patrick Henry come the nearest to being classical. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”[87]The Constitution enumerates liberty next to the possession of life among the inalienable rights of men. Lincoln expressed it again in his Gettysburg address. “... We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[88]The notes of freedom and self-rule of the people are the dominant ones in the passage with which Lincoln closed the speech. It has been the President of the United States who has most clearly and consistently defined the aim of the Allies in this present war as that of making the world safe for democracy,i. e., for freedom. But the countries which are called autocratic also insist that they are fighting for freedom, and they are proclaiming to their peoples that they are fighting on the defensive, and in the cause of liberty. The ideal of freedom is dear to all.
Along with the demand for freedom goes the insistence thatthose things which are of great valueto one shall be held sacred. The defense of homes is a cause that arouses masculine patriotism. There is an old saying found in Bacon that “Love of his country begins in a man’s own house.”[89]The patriot will sacrifice for his home; and he will die that his posterity may enjoy the privileges of a free country.
Thepursuit of happinessis another of the privileges that men deem inalienable. And the pursuit of happiness in grown-ups seems to be mostly the pursuit of trade. Consequently they will prize what protects, and hate what threatens business. One hates the invader of his country because he does not want the means of his livelihood to pass under the control of an unsympathetic power. The land is the form of wealth that is inevitably seized by the invader. And patriotism, because of this, gains another connection with the soil. “... Patriotism envelops the real estate because the real estate nourishesthe lives and careers of the patriots.... The emotions of loyalty and value congregate about the ‘vital interests’ of our lives.”[90]The laying on of burdens of taxation too grievous to be borne is an unwarrantable interference with the pursuit of happiness. And so patriotism often starts over taxes. It was so in the formation of the United States. The following extract from a speech by Samuel Adams to the newly elected representatives to the Massachusetts colonial legislature from Boston, will show what the drift then was: “... As you represent a town which lives by its trade,” he said, “we expect in a very particular manner, though you make it the object of your attention to support our commerce in all its just rights, to vindicate it from all unreasonable impositions and promote its prosperity.”[91]The trader looks to his government for protection, and when he receives it, he has a particular reason for desiring the continued good health of his country. The same holds true of workingmen. John Dewey says: “... The simple fact of the case is that at present workingmen have more to gain from their own national state in the way of legislative and administrative concessions than they have from some other state, or from any international organization.”[92]And as long as this is true, tradesmen, laborers, and all others who have anything to gain by it will be patriots, and violent patriots.
What kind of patriotism is it that rests upon the belief in one’s country as the protector of self? Is it patriotism at all? It is not that disinterested love of country that the common man has been formally taught to regard as patriotism. But it is loyalty to country, and whatever answers to that description must be patriotism. It no doubt makes the state a kind of business affair. The primary motive is that of prudence. A man defends his country because he needs it. But some men serve God in that way, and we call it religion. And so this profit-and-loss attachment to country may come under the term patriotism. One reason, therefore, for patriotism is that the country is needful for the protection of life’s values. But, on the other hand, the attachment to country is not patriotism, if the country is looked atmerelyas means. Patriotism views the country somehow as end. If the real and only motive which is getting expressed is that of self-interest, any show of patriotism is after all merecamouflage. The point is that men will actually come to feel real gratitude and love for the country which has protected them. It is a psychological fact that affection attaches itself to what has been useful. In this way and for this reason, affection attaches itself to country, and becomes patriotism.