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. In the 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 patriot fears other 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 that existence itself, 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 ago pointed 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 that those things which are of great value to 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.
The pursuit of happiness is 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 nourishes the 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 at merely as 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 mere camouflage. 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.
CHAPTER VI
The Oneness of Country and Self
The patriot identifies himself with his country. He believes that he and his country are one. This belief is the coming to consciousness of the impulse to cling to one’s own. And this conviction becomes another reason for patriotism. Patriotic loyalty of this kind is not a business affair. It will not abandon the country even if the latter should prove unsuccessful in providing protection, but will remain steadfast through all the country’s vicissitudes. One’s country may fail to protect him, but if it is still a recognizable expression of himself, he will love it. The government or state may be faulty, and yet the patriot will still be true. Veblen intimates that one might just as well have foreign officials as home-grown capitalists administer one’s affairs of government.[93] But the patriot is not likely to be persuaded to think Veblen’s way, and the reason is that the home-grown capitalists somehow seem closer than the foreign officials. It is quite true that there are those who refuse to be patriotic because their country does not give them what they believe to be justice. Anarchists are not patriotic. Socialists sometimes are not patriotic. Some among the laboring classes have come to wear their patriotic allegiance but lightly. But the issue for them has ceased to be merely that of getting justice. It has come to the point where the injustice of the industrial situation has gone so far that the dissatisfied classes do not even recognize themselves in the state that is supposed to represent them. And when that feeling of strangeness creeps into a man’s heart, he is no longer likely to be a patriot. Patriotism is rendered to a country that is one’s own. In view of this, it seems rather significant that the rise of nationalism has been cotemporal with the rise of democracy.
The country is a part of one’s objectified self. And one cannot be a self without being objectified. He has to come to expression in some way, and he has to have the means and material through which to express himself. The individual would lose in individuality if his group were broken up. He cannot be a normal human being independent of the group; and the group for the civilized man includes “country.” “In a profound sense, man is born under the relations of country and of government. He can no more live a rational, civilized life without a country, and apart from government, than without the family and apart from the social order. Scarce human is the individual to whom are applicable Homer’s contemptuous words,—‘No tribe, nor state, nor home hath he.’”[94] The country pours itself into the individual. Jacks says: “The distinction between our own thoughts and the nation’s thoughts is being obliterated. Ask the first honest man you meet to tell you what he is thinking, and if he answers faithfully, he will tell you something of what the nation is thinking.”[95] The patriot instinctively feels the oneness between his country and himself, and often has a clear belief concerning it. Washington spoke of “that country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life; for whose sake I have consumed so many anxious days and watchful nights, and whose happiness, being extremely dear to me, will always constitute no inconsiderable part of my own.”[96] Washington identified himself with America, and so do all patriots identify themselves with their country. If the patriot were asked why one should love his country, his reply might very well be, “Why should one love himself?”