CHAPTER X
The Ethical Value of Patriotism in the Concrete
Patriotism serves a necessary purpose, and is therefore a fundamental human good. In some form it is existentially necessary. The problem of patriotism now becomes, then, “What is its form to be?” For patriotism as it actually appears in persons and nations is not all good. It may be, as an individual possession, morally colorless. There are barnacles attached to the ship of state. Zimmermann made a keen remark when he said, “The love of one’s country, however extolled, is, in many cases, no more than the love of an ass for its stall.”[189] It may be either noble or narrow. There is a higher and lower patriotism. It depends on how it expresses itself. Before the ethical value of nationalistic loyalty can be fully determined it must be looked at in its concrete forms. The varying motives and effects of patriotism must be considered.
Why is patriotism noble? The reason why it has been popularly extolled is that it is a form of unselfishness. There is hardly another cause in the world today that calls forth such heroic self-sacrifice as the cause of one’s country. Royce included the state among the causes that have organized men in unselfish devotion. He said, “... we have certain human activities that do now already tend to the impersonal organization of the life of those engaged in them. Such activities are found in the work of art, in the pursuit of truth, and in genuine public spirit. Beauty, Knowledge, and the State, are three ideal objects that do actually claim from those who serve them harmony, freedom from selfishness, and a wholly impersonal devotion.”[190] And unselfishness is one of the fundamental human virtues. It makes the individual himself a better man, and is most certainly needed in the structure of society.
Patriotism has the tendency to make men idealists. It is hard enough to get men’s thoughts off of purely material things, and whatever can draw their devotion to an ideal cause is, so far, worth while.
Patriotism has made for coöperation among men. The primary purpose of the state is that of coöperation, that is, of making it possible for men successfully to live together. That, on the face of it, is a noble purpose. And the state has actually secured a larger range of coöperation than what had been attained before it. It has secured a wider range of peace. It is a larger peace unit. Hence, the state as an integration of men is a gain, and is not, if it is avoidable, to be destroyed. It would not, for instance, be a gain to condemn even Germany to destruction as long as any other mode of treatment is possible. Of course this argument assumes that the state is indispensable as an institution for the integration of mankind. But it really is indispensable. An irreducible unit of society is a community—those living in close contact in some given limited territory. Hence, the territorial principle is an inescapable one in the organization of society. And, if so, communities will, by their conflicts, if by nothing else, be organized into states. That is what has happened. No organization of society on any other plan is likely to find it possible to dispense with the state. And now, if the state is so necessary and valuable in the organization of society, patriotism as a force that preserves the state and its benefits is of value to men.
But the relations of patriotism to war and internationalism are now its most crucial problems. It is often argued that while patriotism has done and does what is claimed for it, it has in large measure outlived its usefulness, and is a prolific source of the world’s greatest troubles at the present time in that it makes for jealousy, conflict, and war. Patriotism is said to be divisive, when thought of in world terms. Hasn’t it, therefore, outlived its usefulness, and isn’t it time to entrust the keeping of the coöperation of men to a still larger institution that shall be worldwide, and thus avoid the conflicts of the present? The feeling that prompts this argument is embodied in the following words: “... a striking factor in today’s thinking is the perception of the immoral consequences of patriotism. We see that while devotion to country entails the final sacrifice of self, it entails also the most inhumane sacrifice of others. We have not yet been able to think the matter out. Distraught, we reverence the men who are dying for their separate flags and strain our eyes beyond the battlefields for the oriflamme of internationalism.”[191] It is evident that when countries go to war, all cannot be right, and that fact puts the patriots of some country in a false position. One cannot take simply the attitude of uncritical patriotism. The good man and the good patriot are not necessarily one and the same. If the contrary were true, then neither we nor the Germans would have any moral grounds upon which to be indignant at one another. Not all causes become just simply for the reason that one’s country chooses to defend them. Aristotle called attention to the fact of varying governments in the world, and drew the following conclusion: “If, then, there are many forms of government, it is evident that the virtue of the good citizen cannot be the one perfect virtue. But we say that a good man is he who has perfect virtue. Hence, it is evident that the good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.”[192] A larger view than that of uncritical patriotism is therefore needed, and the critic says that such is just what the patriot cannot be expected to attain. The critic makes the charge that the coöperation that has been gained in patriotism is an obstruction in the way of attaining a larger coöperation. Patriotism, in other words, is not a proper force for saving the world. For one thing, it contents a man with his own country; the patriot doesn’t strive for any higher organization of men, and so the spirit of progress is deadened. Moreover, so the critic sometimes says, patriotism is simply a coöperation for conflict. It is setting men at each other’s throats.
It will have to be admitted first of all that patriotism may be the kind of force that its critic describes it to be. And if it were irrevocably and wholly committed to be such a spirit, one would have to pass an unfavorable verdict upon it. Whatever its benefits might otherwise be, the world would not tolerate it, if that meant to be forever confronted with the possibility of another conflict such as the present one. It may, however, be pleaded that the present internecine conflict of patriots is not a permanent condition of mankind. It is a stage through which the race is having to pass in its development towards world-wide organization. And it is not altogether strange that in the process, patriotism should be a temporary difficulty, just as family, clan, and provincial pride once were. The factors making for a world integration have not yet fully found themselves, and of course, are not adequate for the job of overcoming the prejudices of patriots. Moreover, it is natural for any stage of progress gained to be a bar to further progress. Each stage has to be sharply and definitely conceived in order to be reached, but that in turn makes it a bar to further development. The vision of the next step simply doesn’t come easily to men’s minds. Moreover, it is easy for them to take achieved results as final. Those results have to be taken seriously, if they are to yield their full value. And besides, a stage of progress doesn’t know itself simply as a link in a single logical line of development; it has many individual interests of its own,—interests which may give it a tendency to fly out of what has been the line of progress. Other things, too, get mixed up with it that tend to pull it out of its straight and narrow path. Patriotism has been mixed up with and betrayed by junkeristic, dynastic, and profiteering interests. Patriotism itself surely should not have to bear the full blame for the faults of those evil companions, although patriotism, it must be admitted, has been in bad company. In the light of all the facts, it seems most accurate to say that patriotism taken as a whole does offer difficulties in the way of welding men into larger peace units. But after all they are only difficulties, and not impassable barriers. They are practical rather than theoretical, not rational and necessary. They offer no grounds for a final condemnation of patriotism.
It does not seem to be fair, at any rate, to say that patriotism is a disintegrating factor in world affairs. There is no larger unit of cooperation that it is breaking up. And patriotism can claim for itself that it has come in as a force making for larger groupings of men. If patriotism were at one sudden blow stricken out of the world, we should be set backward rather than forward in the process of winning the conditions of world peace.
Patriotism cannot be set down as an ultimate enemy of peace on earth and good will among men because it sometimes supports a war. The purpose of a state is not primarily that of waging war, but that of enabling men to live together in peace. And correspondingly patriotism is not exclusively or mainly a war-waging virtue. In fact, it more commonly expresses itself as a peaceful and constructive public spirit. Patriotism, as matters now stand, is not likely to cause the opening of hostilities, although it will support a war which has already been started. And it is, even in war, usually a defensive rather than an offensive attitude. This is virtually proved by the fact that all the belligerent countries have to make their peoples believe that they are fighting a defensive war. That is the way in which the martial spirit of patriots has to be appealed to. And it is a significant thing that such is the case. It indicates that the destruction of patriotism is not necessary to the attainment of world peace, but that the end may be secured simply through the decay of the bellicose spirit. As a matter of fact, the conscience of the world has already undergone great changes with regard to war. It is probable that the earliest savage state was that of almost incessant warfare. And in those days, it wasn’t necessary to find any pretext for opening hostilities. The sufficient reason for an attack was that the other group had something that the party of the first part wanted. The earliest stage of savage and even civilized life, therefore, was one in which wars could quite uniformly be frankly wars of aggression. The stage in which the present generation seems to be living is that of “wars of defense.” There are some signs that the next era will be that of peace. The whole world is getting tired of war, and longing for internationalism. And, what is new, these feelings are springing up all over the world at the same time. Perhaps we are already in the transitional period. At any rate, it does not seem to be quite accurate to charge that patriotism is the first cause of wars in these days. It is safe to say that the populations of the world wanted peace in 1914. Something else is the first cause of wars. A dispute arises between two governments, and patriotism, to be sure, adds fuel to the flames. But patriotism in itself is for the most part peaceful until it is fanned into fury.
But even if patriotism does go to war, it is not simply for that to be condemned without further ado. The resistance that a nation offers is often really a service to the cause of integration in the world. For world coöperation cannot be based upon world conquest. That is not the way to a broader unity. And whoever opposes such conquest is the friend of true unity. There can be such a thing as an integration on a thoroughly bad principle. A robber band or a conscienceless monopolistic “trust” would be examples of just such an organization. And there also may be a thoroughly unholy alliance in the political realm. It is just that which the spirit of patriotism is at the present time preventing. World domination and world brotherhood are incompatible, and that proposition right now just as truly has a practical application, although in a different way, for those who live west of the Rhine as for those who live on the other side. If it is wrong for Germany to build up a world-empire on the principle of domination, it is wrong for us to let her do it. Integration implies a unity of differences. There can, then, be no true integration where significant differences are ignored. And there will be no just organization of all the peoples of the world where the individuality of some of the parts is disregarded. Within the nation, we demand that the individuality of each unit be respected. The pacifist makes that demand for himself. And it is just as much right that the individuality of each nation should be respected in the community of which it is a part. The nation occupies the same position with regard to the world that the individual occupies with regard to the country. Similar rights and similar duties may be claimed for both. It is fair that the same organizing principle should be applied on both the national and international levels, namely, unity in difference.