Today is Red, White, and Blue day here at school, and I have to say...I just don't get patriotism. At least super-patriotism. And as I promised a post about this sort of thing, today is a great day to write about it.
Let me begin by telling a bit about the stuff that has influenced my sense of patriotism. There are three things:
1. In college, one of the required courses was Contemporary Global History, that I took with the venerable old History Professor who has since retired. He was teaching about the rise of WWI and how the Versailles Treaty led to WWII, and he went to a great deal of effort to impress on our little minds the difference between notional pride and nationalism. National pride, he said, is the feeling of pride in your heart that you feel when you look at your national flag or sing the national anthem. Nationalism is national pride taken waay too far...like telling yourself and the world that you are the best and that everyone else needs to get out of your way. This made me think...I don't want to be or become a nationalist, and kick other nationalities in the kneecaps to that I can live my life.
2. In my only American History class in college (taught by the humorous, sarcastic history professor who wrote his thesis about the migration patterns of geese...you know who I mean). He taught the material, but also made it clear that some of the decisions made in our history were not the best decisions. For example, why did President Jackson cause all the Indians to leave the land east of the Mississippi River? I think to myself, why didn't the man with the power to make a difference in the lives of all those people do something and teach Whites and Indians to get along? He really could have changed things here for the better. These and other events just make me wonder what exactly it is that we are proud of when we sing, "I'm proud to be an American." I am proud of all the veterans who suffered and died for our country, and I am thankful to all the servicewomen and -men who are fighting now, but I just don't know what all there is to be proud of. There are too many history horror stories.
3. We Christians are to have our primary allegiance to Christ and His Kingdom. Why then do we have the American flag hanging in so many of our churches? and why does it take the right side, the side of primary honor, when the Christian flag takes the left side and consequently has less honor that the right-hand-side flag? And why do we sing patriotic songs in church? I just don't get it, once again. Sigh.
So I just don't get the whole patriortism thing. When I was in Philadelphia, I went to see the Liberty Bell. There was all sorts of security around it, there was a long line, and then I got into the Room of the Bell. It was a bell, roped off, and placed in a dramatic location so you could see Independence Hall behind it. Why? Why have that much security around a bell (or even around a Bell)? Why not do something else with our time and money and creativity? What is the significance of the Bell? Why did we set aside a bell to become a Bell and one of the symbols of our freedom? Why has it become a national treasure and the object of so much veneration?
Somebody tell me, and tell me in better terms that just "It stands for liberty." What liberty? Do we all enjoy liberty? Did the women in the 1800s enjoy liberty? Did the Black people of the 1600s-1800s enjoy liberty? What about all the Indians who lived here before the Whites did? And the native Alaskans? And the native Hawaiians? And the Chinese immigrants who built the trascontinental railroad? And the Irish immigrants who lived on the East Coast in the early 1800s? And the Japanese Americans who were trucked off to camps during WWII?
How can we all look at a Bell and then feel a surge of pride over our liberty when we haven't worked for true liberty for all the people who live here and who have lived here?
Posted by at November 7, 2003 09:24 AM | TrackBack