>
>What does love your country mean? Should I also love my state or my
>county?
We settled THAT issue in the Civil War, thank you very much! Now, people do love their states, some people do. I don't feel one way or another about Illinois, though. Still, despite our anachrobistic Federalism, states are largely admistrative regions.
Should I have more affection for somebody who lives in California
>and somebody who resides in New York?
Than whom? But the bond of common nationality isn't a matter of affection for individuals.
What does it mean to think
>something less of somebody -- less enough to go to war against him -- just
>because he lives somewhere else?
Well, that would be pretty dumb. I don't think the most ardent jingo thinks that we should go to war with people just because they live elsewhere.
If I am to think less of him because of
>geography, why not extend that same principle to race?
>
Who said anything about thinking less of someone because they live somewhere else? Think of family, analogous to patriotism in some ways in being relatively independent of personal affection. I don't think less of you just because you're not in my family. But I do care more about my family than I care about you, sorry about that, Michael. That's so even if I think more of you than I do of some people in my family.
>I can appreciate accomplishments of the people of United States, just as I
>can think ill of actions of which I disapprove.
>
But it's not just a matter of detached appreciation or disapproval. I feel pride that we produced Martin and Malcolm and Louis Armstrong, and ashamed that we produced Strom Thurmond and Richard Nixon and Wayne Newton. I don't feel proud of Lady Murasaki or Kenzeburo Oe--Yoshie can, but I can't--although I admire them--or ashamed of Tojo. And as Jews, Michael, we should feel specially sullied by Sharon and Barak and can feel honored to be the people who produced Marx and the Marx Brothers. Doug can't--he's not Jewish.
What we have here is the classic Enlightenment problem with patriotism. There's no place in classical Englightenment liberalism, a doctrine I adhere to in many ways, for unchosen identities. But they're a fact, and they're opart of what makes us human. I'm no communitarian, but the c's are right about the importance of this fact.
Now, why nation rather than race? A priori, there's no reason. But we don't face the matter a priori. We face it in a particular context. In practice, it's because racial identifications have a particularly ugly history, at least from the side of the dominant group. True, nationalism can be pretty ugly too. But it is more complex. It can be an attachment to a place and a people without any assumption of superiority--like family. Lincoln's racsim we cannot ignore, but it's not what we celebrate in him. Lincoln's patriotism, his burning attachment to the Union, is what made him great.
I do not foreswear class allegience. I am always and everywhere on the side of the working classes of all nations, first and foremost. But Marx was wrong about this one thing: the workers have countries, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway it's something we have to live with. I'll fight "Buy American" till the day I die, that's stupid and wrong. But "Be American"? Why not? This land is your land, this land is my land, this land belongs to you and me.
jks
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