It seems to me that a clarification between the oft abused and misused notions of “patriotism” and “nationalism” is in order. There appears to be some confusion among readers of Vox Nova as to whether or not any or all of us here reject patriotism. I, for one, take patriotism to be a virtue, not least of all because of the word’s etymological roots in the Latin patria, which means “fatherland” (the related Latin word for “father” is pater). M.Z. Forrest has already hinted at the crucial importance of the concept of patria here. When we consider our patria, the notion of “patrimony” ought to follow closely. Our patria, in its broad diversity and wide scope, instills in us values, spiritual principles and cultural identity. Even when we reflexively critique these values, prinicples and identity, they nevertheless serve to continually supply us with critical content. The reverence we hold for our patria is analogous to the reverence we hold for our pater (father) and mater (mother).
Before looking closer at this notion of reverence for patria, it is important to note that the patrimony bequethed by it is in no way monolithic or static. The values, principles and identity given to us by our patria vary by locale, sub-society and even family (consider a wealthy Mexican-American woman from Houston in relation to a poor white man from Appalachia) . Though varying, they nonetheless remain emanations of the same patria. Because the patria is a common good of all its citizens, a serious duty to rever, in whichever manner or whatever measure, is levelled. This reverence gives rise to the virtue of patriotism.
I find John Paul II’s soaring description of the “moral value of patriotism” worth quoting:
Patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its traditions, its language, its natural features. It is a love which extends also to the works of our compatriots and the fruits of their genius. Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love…I belive that the same could be said of every country and every nation in Europe and throughout the world. (Memory and Identity, 65-66)
It is important to note that patria and even “nation” (from the Latin natus meaning “born”) are not coextensive or synomous with the concept of State. Hence, John Paul II can love Poland and I can love the United States without embracing the totality of governmental and legal structures that are generated by, and subsequent to, the patria, and perhaps more significantly, the family. The connection between pater and patria emerges even more markedly when we consider the manner in which the family is a basic unit of the very society that receives its national patrimony. The family and the nation are natural societies, and no political paradigm of the State, be it liberal democracy or socialism, can replace or supplant them. This is why a citizen may resist certain political structures, which are subsequent to, and dependent on, the nation, without foregoing the moral virtue of patriotism. Patriotism, precisely as reverence for the common property that is the patria, is a deep concern for the common good.
John Paul II admonishes us to be wary of allowing our patriotism to morph into the vice of nationalism:
The cultural and historical identity of any society is preserved and nourished by all that is contained within this concept of nation. Clearly, one thing must be avoided at all costs: the risk of allowing the essential function of the nation to lead to an unhealthy nationalism. (Memory and Identity, 67)
On the essential and moral difference between patriotism and nationalism, John Paul II writes:
Whereas nationalism involves recognizing and pursuing the good of one’s own nation alone, without regard for the rights of others, patriotism, on the other hand, is a love for one’s native land that accords rights to all other nations equal ot those claimed for one’s own. Patriotism, in other words, leads to a properly ordered social love.(Memory and Identity, 67)
Related are Morning’s Minion thoughts on the threat of nationalism here.
Reflecting on the manner in which nationalism in pre-World War Europe tore the continent to pieces, Pope Benedict XVI outlines the healthy balance between national identity and recognition of the community of all nations:
In response to the divisive nationalisms and the hegemonistic ideologies that had given the old hostilities a radical form in the Second World War, it was intended that the common cultural, moral, and religious inheritence of Europe should shape the awareness of its nations. This common identity…was to open up a path to peace, a path into the future that all could take together. The search was for a European identity that would not extinguish or deny the individual national identities but would bind them together in a higher fellowship to form one single community of peoples. (Values in a Time of Upheaval, 152)
I think modes of nationalism lurk in the political consciousness of many Catholics in the U.S., not least of all those who characterize members of the Roman Curia as “anti-American” whenever these same members criticize aspects of American foreign policy on the grounds that it may adversely affect other nations or individual citizens of those nations. Shades of nationalism may reside in such perceptions, for they do not consider the common good of nations, but the benefit and interests of the United States alone. I have noticed, however, the cowardice of these same Catholics demonstrated in an unwillingness to label Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI in a similar fashion for their strong criticism of the Iraq War, the administering of the death penalty, the effects of free market economics on the poor, and the problem of “First World” aid to the “Third World.”
To close, I am reminded of the crypto-nationalism that operates at a low enough frequency to fool the masses in George Weigel’s lamentable The Cube and the Cathedral. Compare Weigel’s unhelpful “us (America) versus them (Europe)” perch to Pope Benedict XVI’s balanced, yet patriotic works A Turning Point for Europe? and newly published Europe. Patriotism is a moral virtue. Nationalism, in its various modes, never is.
March 15, 2008 at 11:49 pm
[...] from the State (civitas). Following Pope John Paul II and St. Josemaría Escrivá, I embrace patriotism as a virtue; I abhor [...]