Patriotism, Identity, and Self-Worth

There seem to be two types of people, at least as regards one parameter. One group is those who would criticize America, or who at least do not feel America should be beyond criticism. The other group bristles at attacks on America and sees them as unpatriotic and even treasonous.

The first group may be very aware of wrongs committed by the U.S. government. Examples might be the terrible treatment—some might even say genocide—of the Native Americans, a lot of it as the result of official policy of the national government. Other examples might be the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the so-called My Lai Massacre in which Vietnamese civilians were fired on and killed by American troops during the Vietnam War. Early reports of this last event were at one point labeled "Communist propaganda" and totally untrue—even though it turned out that there was good documentation that the events had indeed occurred.

During the Vietnam War, I personally learned how emotional some people would get over any suggestion that the war was wrong or that America or Americans were wrong in what was being done. I didn't get spat upon or clubbed, myself; but I received a lot of unkind words when my ideas, on the one pole of this issue, were heard by someone at the other pole.

People tend to derive at least some of their feelings of self-worth from institutions or entities that they identify with: their school, their community, their country, even a sports team. Maybe these identifications are substitutes for, or vestiges of, very ancient identification with one's clan.

Whatever the ultimate psychosocial origin of this need to identify, people may feel personally attacked when they perceive the things they identify with as being attacked.

Another way to view it would liken it to religion and one's deities. Look at the issue that has come up from time to time—again most notably during the Vietnam War years—of so-called "flag desecration." In the 1960s, protesters against the Vietnamese War burned American flags. Those who strongly opposed such acts tried to get a Constitutional amendment passed prohibiting flag burning. (The U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled in 1989 and 1990 that flag-burning was not punishable as a criminal act.)

The root of the word desecration is secr-, which is the same element as in the word sacred. In other words, if something can be desecrated, you are considering it to be sacred. Is the American flag sacred, or should it be? Note that the word sacred or desecrate seems to point to a blurring of country with religion. Some might argue that to make the state into a god is idolatry. (There may be a fine line between symbol and idol.) I think that many right-wing regimes have indeed tried to make the state a god, and the country's leader a near-divine figure. Think of giant portraits of Chairman Mao, or look at certain African countries where there is a cult of the national leader which strives to elevate him to the near-divine. Roman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs were regarded as divine.

In any event, our country might rank right up there with the religion or deity or church that we identify with (if in fact we do). These things are part of our identity. We derive our sense of worth from identifying with the best (strongest, etc.) country, with the true (or most charitable, oldest, etc.) religion.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein