Having all kids recite the Pledge seems a little like brainwashing or indoctrinating them.
To me, it is as bizarre and questionable as Japanese company songs.
My question to Dopers from around the world: does your country have a Pledge that kids recite every morning at school?
I dunno. A silly American thing.
The last time I was Back Home, we said the Pledge in my Masonic Lodge. Very weird.
Checking in from the Irish side of things. Never had to recite anything state related every morning, or indeed ever, with the one exception of teaching us the national anthem, an activity very few people would object to. Did start the day with school prayers though (this may not be standard in Irish schools, my family is not RC and I didn’t go to a mainsteam school). To answer the question precisely, there is no Irish equivalent of the pledge and we didn’t have a flag in the school anywhere.
When I was in public elementary school, we sang the national anthem or God Save the Queen every morning. We didn’t do so when I was at private school in the later grades. I don’t think either strategy made me more or less patriotic.
**Why do kids recite the Pledge? **
Because the grown-up make them do it, of course. 
I forgot to mention some info that I think is very relevant to the issue of reciting the Pledge.
In “A nation apart”, a survey from the November 2003 issue of the Economist, we find the following info
"Are you proud to be ...?"
2001, % answering **"very proud"**
American: 80%
British: 50%
French: 35%
Italian: 30%
German: 20%
I think the 80% in the case of America can be explained by the constant pro-America rhetoric/propaganda in politicians’ speeches, the media/movies, and the daily recitation of the Pledge.
Of course, those who are proud to be an American may say that there is no propaganda, and the reason they are damned proud to be an American is due to the fact that “it’s the best darn country in the history of the world”.
But I think that daily recitations of the Pledge might have something to do with it. It is a form of brainwashing and indoctrination.
I’m one of those patriotic/proud to be American types, and I’ve always hated the pledge. Even as a kid I thought it was wrong to force everyone to swear a loyalty oath. You don’t have to love America unconditionally or worship the flag to be a good citizen.
I also hate the flags and flag stickers on cars. True patriots don’t need to flaunt it.
???
We had the pledge every morning in school but nobody was made to do it or anything past, oh, age 12 or so. I’m not sure it could be said that we were “made” to do it. Expected? Yes. Punished for not doing it? Naw.
By the time high school rolled around homeroom usually had 2 patriotic types and 20 kids that were too sexy for the pledge.
Yup. That’s about how it is at my high school. But you’re still “supposed to” say it, and you still hear it.
I agree, it does feel like brainwashing. Reminds me very much of 1984, especially in the predictable rhythmic monotone that is invariably used. I feel like people are staring blankly at the flag, chanting, “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
I moved here from the UK nine years ago and went straight into the tenth grade… and to this day I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anything as terrifying as a classroom of thirty (plus me, when I saw everyone else do it) stand at attention and start reciting the Pledge.
“Freest country in the world”, etc. etc., and they made schoolchildren take loyalty oaths. Put me very much in mind of Chinese schoolchildren saluting a portrait of Mao.
The answer to your question is because Americans are in love with officialness. This is why, among other things, some parents keep win/loss records of their kids’ pickup basketball games, and children are told to recite the pledge. Patriotism isn’t official until it’s government-approved.
Frankly, I’ve always thought the whole idea of the pledge would have been anathema to the Founders. Just my two cents.
Good point. Where are all the people saying that it is their right not to recite the pledge? (Just been talking about Freedom of Speech and rights amongst other things in another thread).
We had to recite something for Brownies and Girl Guides, but nothing state or even school related in NZ.
When I went to a British school, we had to say the Lords prayer at the end of everyday before going home (it meant nothing to me, just something you did as part of the daily ritual) and ofcourse God save the Queen in assembly.
In Japan, I never had to recite anything or do daily exercises (probably due to the relaxed nature of my small rural town in the Far North), but the schools all had school songs and certain daily rituals.
Whilst I lived in Japan, I noted some strong similarities between Japan and the US - the strong patriotic streak, love of ritual and very inward looking.
I dunno. When I was in grammar school, we said the pledge first thing in the morning. I think most of us were either bored or still sleepy when we said it - it certainly wasn’t recited with any enthusiasm. 
By the way, it may interest you to know that the original pledge was (allegedly) written by a Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, for school children to use as part of the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. It was his intent to reiterate the unity of the country 27 years after the end of the Civil War, and to promote the views of liberty and justice that he, as a Christian socialist, felt were important. That original pledge was made “to my flag” only.
However, it apparently took World War II to provoke official recognition by Congress of a modified version of the pledge, which included word changes made originally in 1923 and 1924 to clarify that it was the flag of the U.S. to which allegiance was being pledged. Eisenhower made the final change in 1954 by adding the words “under God.” (See various versions here.) Given that official recognition of the pledge came at a time of high patriotic feeling that many in this country still regard as one of our finest hours on the world stage, (e.g., The Greatest Generation), I sincerely doubt that any politician would risk their career on championing the removal of pledge from classrooms.
Considering the particular history of the pledge, I don’t see any reason why any other country would bother to have one of their own.
On preview:
I think that sums up pretty well how a lot of kids here feel about the pledge. If they have a strong patriotic streak, I’d wager it comes from their own family, reinforced by some images in the media.
Right here.
There are plenty of people - reciting it isn’t even mandatory, last I checked. Not that most kids know or care.
I remember reciting the pledge daily through the 8th grade. Don’t remember saying it in grades 9-12, only recall standing silently while they played the national anthem. By the time I got to 6th grade, I remember hating the fact that I had to say “one nation under God.” and would go silent at that point instead of uttering it along with the rest of the sheep.
Not only loyalty oaths to their country, but an oath specifying the only correct religion to believe in, as well.
To take a stab at answering the factual question in the title of the thread (or rather, the question “Why do the adults make kids recite the Pledge?”), I would guess that it originally had to do with the United States’ history of large scale immigration. Historically there has been a lot of fear that all those foreign-born people coming over here will fail to assimilate into American culture, and will instead remain loyal to their original homelands. (I guess the act of leaving their homes and former lives, travelling thousands of miles under often difficult conditions, and applying for citizenship in a new country was felt by some to be an insufficient guarantee.) A related fear would be that new citizens, rather than all coming to see themselves as “Americans”, might instead form themselves into distinct ethnic or “tribal” blocs, perhaps replicating rivalries and hatreds imported from their original homelands.
Things like the Pledge of Allegiance were therefore an effort (however creepy) to promote the formation of a sense of being a single people with loyalty to a common set of ideals among a heterogeneous population of people who spoke many different languages, belonged to many different religions, practiced many different customs, and came from many different backgrounds and conditions. During later periods such as the '50’s (not relatively speaking a period of extremely high immigration), the focus of such public ceremonies of patriotism undoubtedly changed to keeping everyone suitably whipped up for the struggle against World Communism.
Of course the U.S. is not the only country to be populated mainly by immigrants from distant lands. Why we seem perhaps uniquely prone to flag-waving and allegiance-pledging even among other immigrant nations I couldn’t say.
What specific religion is being pimped in the PoA?
A belief in a monotheistic being, generally assumed to be the Judeo-Christian God. It specifically excludes these beliefs:[ul][]No god[]Multiple gods[]Buddha[]Krishna[]Allah[]Kami[]The sum of all things (Pantheism)[]The 33 gods of the Druids[][]Pagan gods[]Religions who don’t worship or idolize a single deity as we know it (Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism) and who would be offended if you said they believe in “God” no matter how the word is spelled[]Many more…[/ul]Interestingly, the followers of the world’s non-Judeo-Christian gods greatly outnumber the Judeo-Christians, so the Pledge is specifying a minority belief in a global sense. Instead of saying to the rest of the world, “Welcome – your beliefs are just as important as ours” it says, “Keep out – you are not worshipping correctly.”
That’s not a ‘specific religion’. Nor is ‘Allah’. May as well say that those who pray to Bog will offended.
Regardless, the rest of those ‘religions’ you mention are statistically insignificant in America. Depending on the numbers you look at, about 82% of Americans describe themselves as Christian, with another 10% as non-Christian religous. Figure most of those are Jews and ‘Allahists’, who as you may or may not know, also believe in ‘God’. (Allah, Jehovah, whatever name they use.)
And the most important part remains: If it so offends a person to recite ‘under God’, they don’t have to!.
:rolleyes:
Good God, that’s just silly. More than that, it’s also wrong. Jews, Christians, and Muslims make up over half of the worlds population.
Minor disagreement time - Allah is the Arabic word for God; Christian Arabs would say they worship Allah. Furthermore, Islam holds that they worship the same God as Christians and Jews, the God of Abraham, abeit with disagreement on His nature, the revalations He made to humanity, and the proper way to worship Him.
And monothesism(at least of the type implied God in the pledge) is not a minority belief in the world - roughly 2 billion people are Christians, and a further billion are Islamic, with quite a few Jews, and other monotheisitic beliefs out there.