Posted on 11/13/2008 11:02:58 AM PST by Sisku Hanne
I have to write about patriotism for an ethics course, and give a "bad" example of it.
Patriotism is a positive word by definition, like words love, family, friend. But, that does not preclude this word from wrong application to do bad things. For example, in modern history...the democrats in congress claiming patriotic pride causes them to make statements which ended up emboldening our enemies and killing more of our own soldiers and innocents. The suffering caused by their “patriotism” went so far as far as for a sitting House member to declare several military personnel guilty without trial, to the press to use this to harm our efforts to liberate millions of people. I would think these are good examples of patriotism being used (wrongly of course because it truly is not patriotic) to impede good and in affect to support evil.
No, I think your analysis is spot on target. Patriotism is a virtue, so there’s no bad version of it, unlike nationalism.
The only thing I can think of is that some loves should not be put above other ones. If you loved your country more than you loved God, for instance, that would be bad....just like if you loved your dog more than your wife.
I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing either, but if you blather on for a few paragraphs about ‘an illegal and unjust war’, you’ll probably get a better grade than you would otherwise.
How about Biden's claim that it is patriotic to pay more taxes. That's not just bad, it's stupid.
It’s a bad thing if you’re living in Stalin-era Russia or Nazi Germany.
Well, if you love your child, that is a good thing. If you love your child so much that you don't let the child have friends, or leave the house, then this becomes obsessive. If you sabotage every relationship so that your child never gets married and never establishes a family of their own, then your love has to be seen as "bad love".
Just so, Patriotism is a very fine thing. But if your Leader tells you that the Fatherland (be aware of the root of the word Patriotism) needs to be purified and that the Jewish pollution must be removed -- if the Leader tells you to work at the camps and help destroy the Jewish menace, then blind patriotism would be a bad thing.
Now, true Patriotism might involve staging a revolution to overthrow the truly bad influences and rescuing your beloved country from this terrible leader. But I think your teacher is probably expecting you to make a distinction between "blind patriotism" -- doing everything your leaders ask of you, no matter what -- and true patriotism which involves fighting against evil influences within your country so that your country can be a thing worth loving.
There should be no doubt that different people will come to different conclusions about when it is time to march along with the leader and when it is time to take up arms against that leader.
Mindlessly supporting your government all the time is poor patriotisim, especially when it’s your party, because it’s your party. Our government is made up of people, people with human failings. A good patriot rocks the boat and peaves people off sometime, because they’re conviction tells them it’s the right thing to do.
Bad patriotisim is easy. Say all the right slogans, plaster on the bumper stickers, hand them your money, but then don’t participate.
Paying taxes; they are patriotic because Joe Biden says so, and they've gone bad because George Bush and Congress are giving them away to companies when they should let nature/the markets take their course.
The “bad” examples are better described as “jingoism”.
I suppose you could make an argument that any sort of blind loyalty has the potential for trouble. The problem though is that you wouldn’t be talking about patriotism per se, but patriotism combined with a loss of independent thinking. The “I was just following orders” school of thought.
If I were in your shoes, I’d get around what I suspect is the professor’s intent here, and choose an example from another country.
If your love of country outweighs a love of the heavenly kingdom, and such affections conflict, that could be a “bad” thing.
If your “love” of country is misguided, as some Nazis practiced, that could be a “bad” thing.
Lots of German Jews thought they were being good, patriotic Germans when they reported for the trains.
Patriotism, by definition, is a virtue. Thus, there can be no bad examples of patriotism. Patriotism is the well-ordered love of one’s State and of one’s fellow citizens. The phrase “My country, right or wrong,” is pernicious and presupposes that national welfare, convenience, and prestige are above all moral law. So patriotism is not unreasoning sentiment, contempt for outsiders, prejudice which regards one’s own way of life as superior, jingoism. Nor is it, according to Samuel Johnson, the last refuge of the scoundrel. For true patriotism, a virtue, cannot be exercised by scoundrels.
There’s patriotism, and then there’s bad nationalism.
One country’s pirate, is another country’s hero (See Lord Nelson).
Nelson was regarded as a pirate by France, and a patriot by Britain.
Patriotism, as a virtue, is the relative mean between two extremes: nationalism, jingoism, chauvinism on the one hand and apathy and impiety with respect to fellow citizens and country on the other. Patriotism is the golden mean between vicious extremes.
Sounds like a semantic difference. I suppose you could, by your definitions, cite a time when patriotism has turned into nationalism.
Bad patriotism is posting a “do my homework for me” vanity thread on freerepublic, thereby wasting JimRob’s resources while you shirk your responsibilities and fellow freepers have to drag your embarrassing ass off of the forum by our earlobe and back to your desk to get to work doing your own research.
How would you SPECIFICALLY define the line between patriotism and nationalism?
I think nationalism is another word for extreme patriotism. Examples are very easy to identify. Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Russia under Putin (search for some articles about how crazy Putin’s supporters are — they follow him unquestioningly and consider any disagreement a form of unlawful dissent!)
Use Hitler’s Germany, for example. Talk about how he took power using his private civilian security force.
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