The mores are the objects of loyalty. One gets into the way of saying, “These ways are my ways and I am going to stick by them. They are mine; I am going to preserve and foster them, and no one shall take them from me.” Loyalty to the mores forms national character. It is tradition which forms a nation of British, Saxon, and Norman strains. Tradition unites Walloon and Fleming in Belgium, Breton and Gens du Midi in France.[60] The likenesses of a people owe no more to the fact of race than to that of the mores. And so the mores become what the patriot is conscious of being loyal to. His patriotism is not so much love of country as love of the mores. The mores for such a spirit of loyalty are the country. When it sings, its song should be, “My mores, ’tis of thee, of thee I sing.” What it claims for itself is the right to be true to the traditions of its own people. When asked to justify its allegiance, it in turn asks the question:
“And who are they who best may claim our trust?
Surely our own people, of whose blood we are;
Who from our infancy have proved their love,
And never have deceived us, save, perchance,
When kindly guile was wholesomer for us
Than truth itself.”[61]
The loyalty to national customs stiffens patriotism, and because of that is, from the standpoint of the patriot, highly desirable, but the problem that it sets is that of preventing it from being satisfied to remain a mere unreasoning superstition.
The mores get embodied in character, and come to be a veritable spirit of loyalty. They grow out of the life of the people, and return to that life. They become actually constituent in personality. The mores become a part of ourselves; we not only think of them, we think with them. They are so natural that we do not notice them. “The more thoroughly American a man is, the less he can perceive Americanism. He will embody it; all he does, says, or writes will be full of it; but he can never truly see it, simply because he has no exterior point of view from which to look at it.”[62] Under such conditions, how could one help being patriotic? It is not something that he strives after; it is to be what he cannot help being. He is patriotic simply because he is himself.
Some conclusions from the study of the habits of patriotism may now be drawn. The complexity of patriotism has further manifested itself. And it is evident that the habits of patriotism, like the impulses, may be either good or bad, or so far as the motive of the individual is concerned, ethically colorless. The patriotism of habituation is natural, like breathing. The habituated patriot will go with the group, and groups like individuals sometimes fall into bad habits. But groups also acquire good habits, and will in those matters be worth serving. Habituation and conformity in such a case will be valuable. Their weakening would often be really disastrous. “There are cases in which the discrediting of tradition is like picking out the mortar that holds together the fabric of society.”[63] There are times when the discrediting of patriotism would mean the destruction of the nation.
The great objection to the patriotism of habituation is that it cannot criticize itself. The lack of criticism will, of course, make for overwhelming strength. In commenting upon the patriotism of the present time, Russell has written as follows: “This instinct [patriotism], just because, in its intense form, it was new and unfamiliar, had remained uninfected by thought, not paralyzed or devitalized by doubt and cold detachment.”[64] But it is just an accident if such patriotism is good. It may easily be the patriotism of the man who takes the stand, “My country, right or wrong,” a position which, while there is something to be said for it on the ground that countries are fundamental institutions which must not be lightly abandoned to destruction, is hardly one to be striven for as an ethical ideal. The road to goodness is not by chance, but by intelligent self-direction. And the goodness of patriotism rests upon the use of intelligence. Patriotism could not as matters now stand be done away with by criticism, but its nature could be molded. We could habituate ourselves to admire and serve in our life what really was to be admired and served.
But the process of habituation, while it produces a powerful spirit of group loyalty, can hardly give a full account of the rise of a conscious ideal like patriotism. The question would remain, “Why the habituation, and why so much insistence upon it?” The process implies a reason for its existence. And reasons become effective through the action of an intelligent agent. The objection to a theory like that of Sumner is that by it social activity is looked at too exclusively on the outside when it ought also to be looked at on the inside. The theory does not do justice to the initiative of the mind. The mores for the most part seem almost to be active entities, which, starting from environmental conditions, develop themselves. Minds are held in their grip. But mores are products of human activity and reflection, and if one would understand them, he must understand the mind, with not only its impulses, but also its ways of thought. Sumner’s own work shows that he believes in something beyond the mores, and that he has an ideal of acting above them. His confidence is placed in thought. He believes that he at least can reflect upon the group ways, and that a science, or perhaps even a philosophy, of the mores can be established. The following are his own words: “Since it appears that the old mores are mischievous if they last beyond the duration of the conditions and needs to which they are adapted, and that constant, gradual, smooth, and easy readjustment is the course of things which is conducive to healthful life, it follows that free and rational criticism of traditional mores is essential to societal welfare.”[65]
Human beings are moved not only by instincts and habits, but also by reasons. And it is with the reasoned beliefs of patriotism that the following part will deal.