People should understand the difference between nationalism and patriotism, and spread love and positive energy in the world. One thing we must remember is that we were all human before Indians or Americans. Aggressive nationalism that tends to spread hatred and war between countries is called patriotism. Although nationalism is good for the country, chauvinism can be a disaster for the country.
essay on patriotism and nationalism
Nationalism is the ideology and movement of a country that helps bring people together. The purpose of nationalism is to cultivate the sense of belonging of the people of the country to their nation. Nationalism unites people of different languages, genders, religions, cultures, or races.
For me, patriotism means supporting our country in both good times and bad; never lose confidence in our country; raise the national flag to show us respect and dedication; and pay tribute to those who serve to defend this country, life or death, retirement or asset. Patriotism means supporting and loving our country, even if it is going through difficult or difficult times. You still love our country, even if it is like this not what you want. Dedication to our country means supporting it no matter what happens, and working hard to improve it.
How you treat those who serve this country also embodies patriotism, employment and retirement, life or death. You can show your respect in your own way to their behavior. You can shake their hand and tell them to thank them. Serve, tell them they are heroes and help them in any way. Patriotism means remembering the dead by keeping the cemetery clean, orderly, and intact. Patriotism does not mean that our country is perfect, but it does mean that we strive to be the best we can be.
Obviously there are considerable resemblances between political Catholicism, as exemplified by Chesterton, and Communism. So there are between either of these and for instance Scottish nationalism, Zionism, Antisemitism or Trotskyism. It would be an oversimplification to say that all forms of nationalism are the same, even in their mental atmosphere, but there are certain rules that hold good in all cases. The following are the principal characteristics of nationalist thought:
I have examined as best as I can the mental habits which are common to all forms of nationalism. The next thing is to classify those forms, but obviously this cannot be done comprehensively. Nationalism is an enormous subject. The world is tormented by innumerable delusions and hatreds which cut across one another in an extremely complex way, and some of the most sinister of them have not yet impinged on the European consciousness. In this essay I am concerned with nationalism as it occurs among the English intelligentsia. In them, much more than in ordinary English people, it is unmixed with patriotism and can therefore can be studied pure. Below are listed the varieties of nationalism now flourishing among English intellectuals, with such comments as seem to be needed. It is convenient to use three headings, Positive, Transferred and Negative, though some varieties will fit into more than one category:
3. Zionism. This has the unusual characteristics of a nationalist movement, but the American variant of it seems to be more violent and malignant than the British. I classify it under Direct and not Transferred nationalism because it flourishes almost exclusively among the Jews themselves. In England, for several rather incongruous reasons, the intelligentsia are mostly pro-Jew on the Palestine issue, but they do not feel strongly about it. All English people of goodwill are also pro-Jew in the sense of disapproving of Nazi persecution. But any actual nationalistic loyalty, or belief in the innate superiority of Jews, is hardly to be found among Gentiles:
In the classification I have attempted above, it will seem that I have often exaggerated, oversimplified, made unwarranted assumptions and have left out of account the existence of ordinarily decent motives. This was inevitable, because in this essay I am trying to isolate and identify tendencies which exist in all our minds and pervert our thinking, without necessarily occurring in a pure state or operating continuously. It is important at this point to correct the over-simplified picture which I have been obliged to make. To begin with, one has no right to assume that everyone, or even every intellectual, is infected by nationalism. Secondly, nationalism can be intermittent and limited. An intelligent man may half-succumb to a belief which attracts him but which he knows to be absurd, and he may keep it out of his mind for long periods, only reverting to it in moments of anger or sentimentality, or when he is certain that no important issues are involved. Thirdly, a nationalistic creed may be adopted in good faith from non-nationalistic motives. Fourthly, several kinds of nationalism, even kinds that cancel out, can co-exist in the same person.
Of undoubted relevance to the American scene, Viroli's studypursues a twofold purpose. Declaring a "lack of a historically accuratedistinction between patriotism and nationalism" (p. 5), it seeks to showthat, contrary to existing approaches to nationalism, which view it as asingle intellectual stream, presenting a different face in different ages andplaces, there are two languages, since the language of nationalism is seen bythe author as very different from the language of patriotism, which precededit. In addition to this historical-conceptual purpose, the book wants toprovide an antidote to nationalism. This is its ideological-politicalpurpose: patriotism is to offer a democratic-left alternative to which thepoor, the unemployed, the disgruntled, and humiliated should be able to turn,thereby depriving "the right to have a monopoly over the language ofpatriotism" (p.15). Viroli feels that hitherto socialist intellectualshave made little or no effort to construct a patriotism of the left capableof countering the nationalism of the right, and hence wants to make sure thatthe democratic left will fight nationalism "on its own ground" andnot "flee the battleground" (pp. 15-16). At the same time, theground that the left claims must be different from that of nationalism.Although patriotism is to share nonrational sentiments with nationalism suchas love, passion, and specific commitment, as also to use the rhetoric of theemotions, it is to instill into people above all a "culture of liberty,an interest in the republic, a love of the common good" (p. 16). Notsurprisingly, Viroli's definition of patriotism is a markedlyprescriptive definition.
The ideological-political purpose, strong though it is, and oftenenough reiterated, does not, however, dwarf the historical-conceptualundertaking which, in fact, takes up the bulk of the study. And while theauthor ideologically insists on juxtaposing patriotism and nationalism asantidotes, as an historian of ideas he concedes that the history of thelanguages of these two concepts is more complicated: patriotism has notexclusively meant loyalty to republics and institutions of justice andfreedom, and nationalism has been invoked by "nationalists" such asHerder, Michelet, or Mazzini, not to oppress and conquer other people, but inorder to give a sense of identity and dignity to their own. Nonetheless,Viroli claims a considerable continuity of meaning, tracing"patriotism" from the Romans and Augustine through Machiavelli,Milton, Rousseau, and Herder, to Fichte, Michelet, Hegel, and Mazzini.Likewise, taking issue with a number of contemporary writers on patriotism,such as Michael Walzer, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Jurgen Habermas, Virolireinforces his case in support of patriotism as a sharp contrast tonationalism, but not in the manner of Habermas who puts forward a highlyrational form of patriotism in his "constitutional patriotism"(Verfassungspatriotismus). Following Tocqueville's analysis of Americanpatriotism rather than Habermas's analysis of post-Auschwitz Germany,Viroli opts for a combination of passion and reason in order to render arepublican patriotism "of the right sort" (p. 184), capable ofserving the needs of love of country, pride, interest, and the diverse formsof life of a multicultural society. In his "patriotism withoutnationalism" (p. 183) Viroli stresses the idea of reciprocity (althoughhe does not use the term): modern citizens, he says, "can love theirrepublic, if the republic loves them" (p. 184), if it protects theirliberty, encourages political participation, and helps them cope with humanhardships, regardless of their ethnic origin.
Interestingly, Viroli runs together, as two sides of the samecoin, what Rousseau sought to present as potentially two entirely differentcoins. Like Viroli, Rousseau was anxious to rehabilitate the notion ofpatriotism which to many of his contemporaries had become an object ofmockery; but, unlike Viroli, he thought the sentiment of patriotism separablefrom the rationality of citizenship, although he did not rule out that asimultaneous consciousness of patriotism and citizenship was possible withinthe more confined area of the canton or city-state, even though in his owncase they did come asunder. In spite of his pride in Geneva as his truepatrie, Rousseau felt compelled to renounce his citizenship, without,however, abandoning his patriotism. "My patrie has not become so foreignto me," he declared in the introduction to his Letters from theMountain, "that I can watch with equanimity its citizens beingoppressed." Unfortunately, Viroli makes no mention of this; but from hisgeneral remarks one is inclined to guess that he would not approve ofRousseau's self-chosen exile but expect him to wage battle as a patriotand citizen. Nonetheless, it would be highly fascinating to know his thinkingon Rousseau's predicament.
In some ways, and notably with regard to the multi-culturalstate, Friedrich Meinecke's Staatsnation comes close to Viroli'sconception of patriotism. It is all the more astonishing, therefore, that noreference at all is made to Meinecke's Weltburgertum und Nationalstaat,surely a "classic" in the intellectual history of nationalism, andin exploring the idea of a political culture, long before this concept hadbecome a household word in political science. "Culture" is, ofcourse, an exceedingly elusive thing. Elusive, not because it fails to beexperienced concretely, but rather because its experience is so pervasivethat we are hard-pressed to identify or delineate it. Much the same is trueof political culture, despite the narrowing down of the concept, because ofits structural complexity and the degree of its historical continuity. Whileinstitutions and deliberate purpose play one part, countless accidents ofhistory, fortune, and sheer mystery play theirs too. To speak of a politicalculture at all, therefore, we must be able to recognize core elements ofcontinuity amidst change, so that, although change may modify these, it mustnot altogether obliterate them. Viroli knows that it is only by this kind ofpersistence through history that a people can come to view itself, and beviewed by others, in a distinctive manner, or express its particular love ofcountry. Habermas's agonies have their source precisely in the lack ofsuch historical continuity within the mainstream of Germanself-understandings. What, then, of `history'? It would have been ofinterest to learn more of Viroli's thinking on this, notably on thediscontinuity in civic cultures. 2ff7e9595c
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