Patriotism’s
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Domain |
Definitions |
Satire
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PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any
one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism
is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an
enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references; see credits. |
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http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Patriotism Source: WordNet
1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by
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(From Wikipedia,
the free Encyclopedia)
Patriotism is a feeling of support for one's own
country. An act motivated by patriotism is said to be a patriotic act.
Generally, any selfless act that directly benefits the
nation is considered patriotic. Perhaps the clearest example is the act of
risking death in battle. However, many other less dramatic beneficial acts,
such as performing the backup work needed to keep a military force functioning,
or looking out for the morale of soldiers, are also considered patriotic.
In addition, symbolic
acts are also often considered to be patriotic. Such acts would include
displaying the national flag, singing the national anthem, participating in a
mass rally, placing a patriotic bumper sticker on one’s vehicle, or any other
way of publicly proclaiming one’s allegiance to the nation.
The line between the two kinds of patriotic act is blurred
by the fact that some people feel that in committing an act of symbolic
patriotism, they are raising the determination or morale of their fellow
citizens, who then will be more likely or able to commit acts that benefit the
nation directly.
Levels of patriotism vary across time and among nations.
Typically, patriotic acts and feelings are greater during wartime or when the
nation otherwise under external threat. It is less well understood why nations
vary in their levels of patriotic feeling. Among modern societies, many have
observed a difference between the
Different people have different opinions about
whether patriotism is morally good. Often, these opinions vary according to
what sort of patriotism is involved.
Some instances of patriotism induce almost universal
admiration. To give just one of many possible examples, in 1940, a number of
Dutch soldiers gave their lives in a hopeless cause attempting to defend the
On the other hand, many of the invading Nazi soldiers
doubtless felt, too, that they were engaged in a patriotic act, in this case on
behalf of the German nation. Many of them had been indoctrinated in a form of
unquestioning patriotism during their teenage years, while they were members of
the Hitler Youth. Very few people today, even in
In addition, many politicians have exploited
patriotism in attacking their opponents, by calling them traitors. In the view
of many, this kind of attack debases political discussion, because it appeals
to a visceral negative emotion (that is, angry patriotism), rather than to the
voters’ reasoned views on what is good for their country. A commonly cited
example of the danger inherent in the political exploitation of patriotism is
the case of Adolf Hitler, who rose to power (terminating democracy in
The unpleasant history of the ways that patriotic
feelings have been put to use has led some individuals to be skeptical about
the idea of patriotism in general. A famous remark of Samuel Johnson,
"patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," can be taken to
express this view.
It can often be difficult to
determine whether in admiring a particular act of patriotism, we are admiring
patriotism itself, or rather the selflessness that patriotism often inspires.
Returning to an example given above (the German invasion of
It seems possible, in fact, that
there are two meanings for the phrase “patriotic act”. In the broad sense, a
patriotic act is any selfless act that benefits the nation, irrespective of
motivation; in the narrow sense, a patriotic act is a selfless act that is
specifically motivated by patriotic feelings.
Returning to the Dutch example one
more time, we can imagine two soldiers, equally brave and self-sacrificing. The
first soldier is motivated by a narrow-minded, chauvinistic preference for all
things Dutch. The second cares nothing for the Dutch nation as such, but has
carefully studied Fascism and has a deep commitment to save the world from its
perceived evils. Many people might well admire the second soldier more than the
first, even though he could be considered the less patriotic of the two.
The example illustrates the
point that patriotism embodies two things: selflessness, which virtually
everyone admires, plus a belief that we owe a greater allegiance to our fellow
citizens than to foreigners. It is the latter ingredient of patriotism that is
controversial. An opposing concept that many people favor is that of a
universal human community, expressed for instance in the idealistic phrase
“Alle Menschen werden Brüder” (“all people become brothers”) sung in
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The question of whether we
are more like brothers with our
countrymen than with other people arises constantly in practical life. For
instance, immigration laws are based on the principle that the citizens of a
country, merely by accident of birth, have an automatic entitlement to live in
it, but foreigners do not. Little consensus currently exists about how, in
formulating policies, we should weigh loyalties within a nation against
loyalties to all of our fellow humans.
In his article "Is
patriotism a virtue?", the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre addresses this
question in a particularly subtle way. He first notes that most contemporary
conceptions of morality insist on a kind of impartial blindness to accidental
traits like national origin in the just treatment of our fellow humans—and
therefore, that patriotism is inevitably not
moral under these conceptions. MacIntyre goes on, however, to construct a
sophisticated alternative conception of morality that would be compatible with
patriotism.
Why do so many people experience
intense patriotic feelings? One explanation that has been proposed is that such
feelings result, in the long run, from kin selection. The distant ancestors of
humanity almost certainly lived in small groups of genetically related
individuals. Feelings of intense loyalty to one's own group might have led
individuals to take actions that were poorly justified on grounds of
self-interest, but helped the group as a whole. Since genes tended to be shared
by the entire group, and cooperation likely was critical to group survival, a
propensity to experience feelings of loyalty to the group was probably favored
by natural selection. This idea was expressed by Charles Darwin in 1871 as
follows:
A tribe including many members who,
from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience,
courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice
themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and
this would be natural selection.
Since
Today, of course, the feelings of
intense patriotism that grip (for example) many Americans cannot possibly be
supported in the evolutionary sense by kin selection, since Americans form a
huge and genetically very diverse population. Yet the forces believed to have
created human nature, and hence these feelings, were in effect over a period of
many millenia, during which time all human societies were very small.
Evidently, there was nothing to stop the feeling of group loyalty from carrying
over, without biological purpose, from small groups to large.
The political rhetoric associated
with patriotism often compares the nation to a family, as in, for instance, the
terms “Fatherland,” “Mother Russia,” or the patriotic words Shakespeare places
in the mouth of Henry V:
“We few, we happy few, we band of
brothers”
In the kin-selection account of
patriotism, this kind of metaphor might be viewed as seeking to focus the
natural feelings people have towards kin onto the nation as a whole.
The kin selection theory of
patriotism is not universally accepted, and the following paragraphs list some
alternative points of view.
Among biologists, some believe that
the quantitative conditions needed to make kin selection effective in small
human societies were not met. The controversy hinges on what numerical values
are to be plugged into the (generally accepted) equations of W. D. Hamilton
that govern kin selection.
Further afield, there are
individuals who accept the theory of evolution in general but reject efforts to
invoke it in the explanation of human behavior. Such people would be likely to
emphasize the great malleability of the human character, including the apparent
possibility of creating patriotism through the instruction of youth, as in the
Hitler Youth example above.
Still other people would reject the
kin selection theory of patriotism simply because they reject the theory of
evolution on which it depends. Often such individuals rely instead on religious
beliefs to understand why the human character is the way it is. From this point
of view, one possible account of patriotism would be that God has permitted
individual people to become either good or evil (a consequence of the doctrine
of free will), and that patriotism is simply a natural behavior of good people.
In fact, historically, patriotic feeling has very
often been linked to religion. At various points in history, particularly in
time of war, various relations of religion and patriotism have prevailed.
In one variant, patriotic participants in a war
acknowledge that the enemy worships the same god, but judge that this god is on
their own side, thus providing the external justification for patriotism noted just
above. This is perhaps a fair characterization of the attitude of many of the
participants in the American Civil War or most of the fronts of the First World
War. Another variant is for each side to worship different gods, acknowledge
that the other side’s god exists, and believe that their own god is superior.
This may have characterized the conflicts between the ancient Israelites and
their Canaanite opponents, as narrated in the Old Testament. Yet another
version of religious patriotism is the belief that a god or set of gods is on
one’s side, and that the god or gods of the other side simply do not exist.
This view often characterized the beliefs of the European powers during the
colonialist period, when their armies often fought against pagan opponents.
Under any of these circumstances, religion can
provide a satisfactory account to its believers for what otherwise would be a
paradox, namely, that both sides in a conflict can feel patriotic at the same
time. The idea would be that the other side is in fact fighting against God’s
will, and thus can be considered to be engaged in a false kind of patriotism.
Levels of patriotism in all nations have varied
through history, and it is an intriguing puzzle for historians why this should
be so.
It is tempting to think that democratic government is
a cause of patriotism. For instance, it could be imagined that the military
forces of Ancient Greece succeeded in fending off much larger numbers of
attacking Persians because ancient Persia was a despotism, whereas many of the
Greeks lived in democracies, which gave them a sense of solidarity and hence of
patriotism. Similarly, it is often thought that the French Revolution, by
freeing the French of the yoke of monarchy, set off a great surge of patriotism
that led to the great (if ultimately temporary) success of the French armies in
the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
This theory cannot be entirely true, since there have
been many states that had tyrannical systems of government but nonetheless had
very high levels of patriotism. Two have already been mentioned here: early
19th-century France (after Napoleon had made himself emperor) and Nazi Germany.
Patriotism can be both for or against the current
government of a nation. Supporters of the current government may hold the
opinion that patriotism implies support of one's government and its policies,
and that opposition to the government's policies amounts to treason. But in
other instances, rebellion against a corrupt or tyrannical government may be
justified as an act needed to save the nation, and thus is likewise motivated
by patriotism.
Patriotism is sometimes
associated with ethnocentrism, i.e. the belief in the inherent superiority of
one’s own people, however this may be defined. However, in the case of
ethnocentrism, the people in question need not form a nation, but can be a
smaller or larger unit. Moreover, the term ethnocentrism is generally used
negatively, whereas the term patriotism is quite often used positively.
It is also sometimes
problematic to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism, as some people
tend to use nationalist as a
near-synonym for patriot.
However, nationalism (but not patriotism) also has a particular meaning,
expressing a desire among a people to form an independent nation.
The word chauvinism denotes
a narrow-minded and thoughtless but impassioned dedication to a particular
cause, and thus is always used negatively. The cause can be of any kind (hence
the widespread use of the phrase male chauvinism), but the term can also refer
to national chauvinism; that is, a negative characterization of patriotism.
Lastly, the word jingoism
is similar to patriotism, but it can only be used negatively, to denote a
variety of patriotism deemed to be aggressive and thoughtless.
Other Wikipedia articles:
Books:
Philosophy:
History:
Biology:
Source: adapted by the
editor from Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia under a copyleft
GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Patriotism."
Synonym: Patriotism
Synonym: nationalism (n). (additional references) |
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Context |
Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Philanthropy
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Patriotism, civism, nationality, love of country, amor
patriae, public spirit. |
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Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. |
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Crosswords:
Patriotism
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English words defined
with "patriotism": chauvinism
♦ Incivism
♦ jingoism
♦ superpatriotism
♦ ultranationalism.
(references) |
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Specialty definitions
using "patriotism": Cato ♦
FOOL ♦
ITCH ♦
Rome's
best Wealth is Patriotism. (references) |
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Non-English Usage: "Patriotism" is also a word in the
following languages with English translations in parentheses. Romanian (patriotism), Swedish (patriotism). |
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Domain |
Usage |
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Screenplays
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And I want to know what it says to you
that in the past seven weeks, 59% of Americans have begun to question your patriotism.
(The American President; writing credit: Aaron Sorkin) Lisa, I'm Faith Crowley, Patriotism
editor of Reading Digest. (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) Patriotism and Collectivism are used to make the majority
serve the few. (The Gate of Heavenly Peace; writing credit: John Crowley) Since this is an emergency, all robots
will now have their patriotism circuits activated. (Futurama; writing credit: Lance Smith; Carl Colpaert) |
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Movie/TV Titles
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Patriotism (1918) The Birth of Patriotism (1917) Patriotism (1915) |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references; see credits. |
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Domain |
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Books
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End of the Old
Regime in ·
Give Me ·
How Americans
Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism (reference) ·
In the Presence
of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World (The New Patriotism Series)
(reference) ·
(more book examples) |
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Theater
& Movies
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·
Valor: Incredible
Stories of Patriotism and Courage (reference) ·
A Legacy of Patriotism
and Valor - African Americans in WWII (reference) |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references; see credits. |
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Thumbnail |
Description & Credit |
Thumbnail |
Description & Credit |
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United
American. Patriotism, charity, harmony.Credit: Library of Congress. |
Arpeggio
and patriotism.Credit: Library of Congress. |
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Woodrow
Wilson just finished painting "currency reform" and "patriotism"
on the trunk of sleeping G.O.P. elephant while beside him sits a
"partisanship" knife.Credit: Library of Congress. |
The
parricide A sketch of modern patriotism.Credit: Library of Congress. |
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Where
President Warren G. Harding sleeps in New Shrine of Patriotism, Marion
Cemetery.Credit: Library of Congress. |
The
Liberty Loan is the cash register of patriotism Has Uncle Sam rung up
your bond purchase yet? / / The Colonial Press, Philadelphia.Credit: Library
of Congress. |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references; see credits. |
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Caption |
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Star Spangled Banner;
Francis Scott Key; American; |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references; see credits. |
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Author |
Quotation |
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of
learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors. |
Denis Diderot
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Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts
the particular threat to society that aroused it. |
Edith
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Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness
toward anyone. |
Edith Cavell
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I realize that patriotism
is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. |
Henry Bolingbroke
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Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported
by great virtue. |
Henry James
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I think patriotism
is like charity -- it begins at home. |
Samuel Johnson.
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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. |
Tacitus
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Patriotism is a praiseworthy competition with one's ancestors. |
William James
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For morality life is a war,
and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which
also calls for volunteers. |
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Source: compiled by the
editor from various references. |
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