Can Patriotism Be Compassionate?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED read. Happy 4th of July.


“I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism,” writes Ursula K. Le Guin in her classic 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness. “I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.”

In some corners, patriotism has a bad name. “Patriot” is mildly defined in my desktop dictionary as a “supporter of one’s own country”—and yet my thesaurus suggests the word “patriotism” can be synonymous with jingoism, chauvinism, nativism, and xenophobia. Particularly during times of war, patriotism does indeed seem to go hand-in-hand with dehumanization of outsiders, as well as intolerance of internal dissent.

But that’s not the whole story. Patriotism also drives people to extremes of altruism and self-sacrifice on behalf of the homeland—as the cliché has it, war brings out the best and worst in human beings. Shared support for a country strengthens social bonds among its citizens and provides an incubator in which trust and compassion can grow among them.

Thus patriotism helps tie us together within national borders, but there’s a catch: It seems to diminish our ability to see the humanity in citizens of other nations. That’s why national holidays like the Fourth of July always present me—and many windmill-tilting idealists who’d like to foster peace and cross-group understanding—with a Gordian knot: We feel forced to choose between country and humanity.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_patriotism_be_compassionate