Can patriotism be logically justified?

[Trinopus]

@etv78

You CAN love your country while simultaneously acknowledging its flaws. . . .

@jsgoddess

I think we can define patriotism in too many ways to determine if it’s logically justified or not. If we just say it’s the drive to do what’s best for the country and the people in it, that seems pretty darned justifiable. If it’s “America, Fuck Yeah!” then it’s jingoistic idiocy, encouraged by jingoistic idiots.

Two very wise posts.

I am proud of my country when it does something good – and ashamed of it when it does something bad.

I don’t “personify” my country. The country doesn’t have any inherent moral qualities. The U.S. has some reasonable institutions. The constitution is pretty nifty, and our national reverence for it is, I think, a group trait that has more benefits then drawbacks. It elevates the Supreme Court a bit too highly, but so far, not to any really damaging degree.

There are a lot of things other countries do better than the U.S. does. That makes me feel a bit ashamed. I wish we were better at living up to our potential.

[Blaster_Master]

Patriotism, to me, is really just a feeling of pride and belonging to your nation. As with any number of other groups to which one can belong and have feelings of pride for, it has useful and meaningful purpose when applied reasonably, and can be potentially dangerous when applied to some extreme or the other. This goes along with other things like culture, religion, race, family, etc.

To that extent, as an American, I’m glad to be here. There’s a lot of places in this world where I’d be much worse off in many ways than I am here. I think it’s reasonable to feel a belonging and a bit of pride in being an American because it helps create a sense of cohesiveness that keeps the country together. If we don’t have that sense of belonging, problems that we face as a nation will be difficult to solve. Even if there’s nothing that explicitly binds me as an American to other Americans, we still share problems because we live close to eachother, share a culture, share economic problems, etc. As such, it’s important that we recognize some degree of kinship because we face a lot of problems that just can’t be solved by individuals, families, or local communities alone.

On the opposite end, if we too strongly tie to this idea, it can create as many problems as it might solve. For instance, patriotism can and has been used to push through legislation or sell ideas that aren’t in our best interest. That is, just because it is something that my nation does, it doesn’t mean I should support or approve of it. Hell, I’ve had a lot of issues with the foreign policy of the US government, and I do think it would be illogical and unethical to support military action just because “we” are the ones doing it. Or similarly, too much focus on “us” as a nation makes it easier to ignore problems facing others around the world that may have little or nothing to do with “us”.

For example, I think the current political situation in the US is a good example of taking this sense of belonging to a group too far. I feel like today offiliation with a political party often trumps what is better, either for a politicians more local constituency or what might be better for the country as a whole. As such a politician is often compelled more to vote along party lines rather than based on one of those other issues. Similarly, there’s major issues outside of the US and we’re strongly weighing our actions on what is best for the US rather than what is potentially in the best interest for the us that is humanity.

TLDR, I do think patriotism is logical, but it needs to be well tempered. The OP points out that too much is bad, but I think having too little patriotism is bad too.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Anyone who isn’t Canadian can’t be patriotic, only deluded, because all your countries suck.

[filmstar-en]

Having a democratic political culture tempers the excesses of patriotism.

If you want to meet a people that makes the famously patriotic US look hopelessly divided, the Russians are way up there.

[Enterprise]

If the question is, “can patriotism be justified,” then the answer, clearly, is yes: we’ve got plenty of empirical evidence for that in this very thread. If the question is “can patriotism be logically justified,” the question becomes trickier: what do you mean by logic, in this case? There are a couple of ways I can think of. People might be generally happier if more emotionally connected to their home country, or it might better integrate them in a society where such connection is the norm.

But as you rightly point out: what patriotism does, ultimately, is justify the rather arbitrary, or at any rate contingent, construct of the nation state: you’re not patriotic to your street, or block, or city, or county, but to your country–today, largely, the nation state (few exceptions may prove the rule). Patriotism is a logically necessary consequence of the nation state, because without it, the nation state could not function: its chief feature is, after all, that it separates one set of people from another solely on the basis of geographic, and often merely arbitrary, features. So you must mobilize your populace’s belief in the specialness of your particular state by, usually, inventing myths, traditions, and some kind of glorious history, defining a language and, ultimately, claiming a national culture that on closer inspection usually is anything but. So yes: patriotism follows logically from the nation state. You’re being perfectly logical in feeling attached to the country that “created you,” in fact, you’re following the most important of patriotism’s logics in doing so.

If the question is, however: is it right that I should think so, in a moral sense; is it right that I should rather rally around my country’s interests than those, perhaps, of a larger group of people who have the misfortune of not being my countrymen solely on account of that accidental fact…well, no, it’s not right. Because, as you pointed out, it’s an attachment you would have felt to any other nation state similarly (NO!, I hear the first people scream, because not all nations are so great as mine! Yeah, that’s kinda the point).

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Patriotism does serve a logical function: it fosters a sense of community that produces selfless acts. The key, as with everything else, is moderation. Moderate patriotism allows us to recruit enough people to serve in our armed forces despite poor pay and shitty working conditions. Too much patriotism allows us to believe we’re better than everyone else and should invade them so we can show them The Right Way to do things (or worse yet, so we can make them serve us because we’re the Supreme Race.)

@MrLee

This is another case of ‘pride’ that I have had difficulty understanding (although perhaps as an English-speaking hetereosexual white male, I should check my privilege - I’m on thin ice here…). Just like being British, American or Cambodian by birth is not the result of conscious action (and so cannot be considered as eligible for pride or shame), surely the same goes for race and sexual orientation. How can anyone be *proud *of being gay? Surely not ashamed is what we should *all *be going for?

I’m not gay, so I can’t speak for that community, but it wasn’t so long ago (and still is in some places) that being homosexual marked you as an outcast or even a deviant who needed chasing with torches and pitchforks. I know plenty of gay people who are out in the private lives but closeted in their careers because they are afraid of how their superiors/clients/prospective employers might react.

I think you’re sort of right that gay pride is really a celebration of not being ashamed, but I also think nobody would show up to an “Unabashed Gay Parade”.

[Sage_Rat]

People with no pride in themselves end up going without a bath, gaining excessive weight, and watching daytime TV.

I am more worried when the people of a nation are distrustful of or ambivalent about their country (see Liberia).

Of course, narcicism and nationalism are both bad.