Patriotism is the last refuge…
February 19, 2008 by Abhishek
The war of gaffes gets more ridiculous each day. After the frankly irrelevant controversy over Obama using borrowed words in a speech, it is now Cindy McCain’s turn to make a not so subtle point about her patriotism vis-a-vis Michelle Obama’s.
For those who missed it, here is the article.
My first reaction to such news is that there are issues, and then there are issues. Such jabs are common place in election season, and entertaining for the observer but usually of little content. This particular controversy is however of some independent interest for one reason - it reminds us of the visceral need that many people feel to be ‘proud’ of the institution they belong to. They may never know what exactly they are proud of but they pretty damn well know that to be not proud is treachery. Politicians -from Mumbai to Madison - are of course masters at manipulating this pride.
My view of patriotism and related matters is reflected by a reader’s comment on the above linked article.
Give me a break. This is non news. I am roughly the same age as Michelle Obama, and let me tell you, it’s been a while since I’ve been REALLY proud of this country; particularly in the past seven years.
People who think you have to constantly express pride in your country or you’re somehow unpatriotic drive me crazy. I happen to think the opposite is true. If you love this country, you speak up for the changes you believe in and try your best to help make those changes.
People who are trying to dissect this comment and somehow turn it into something it wasn’t just make me laugh. The last thing we need in the White House is another robot spouting blind patriotism as justification for his or her own personal agenda.
-Cami.
The “virtue” of patriotism has left me stumped since I began questioning things. Killing and willing to die in the name of religion is BAD, in the name of region, well that’s plain regionalism and hence, BAD, but if it’s for your country, it’s so noble.
The moment you are willing to die and kill for something, you should question the motive. It is bad enough to be part of any cult (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/every-cause-wan.html), and patriotism seems to me to be so full of the kind of cultish statements like, “Since we all love our country so much, we should be willing to die for it, if required to”.
Look at a criminal who has committed 3 murders in his lifetime. We look at him in contempt. He killed innocent victims. We might insist on capital punishment for him. And how would you feel standing next to a General from the Army? Well, you are conditioned to feel proud. All about how he has protected the country during wars. How he may have given orders to kill twenty people during critical but non-war time and without being sure if these people were innocent or not, the orders having come from the top and so on.