George Kateb vs. Patriotism
I’ve recently become a big fan of the eminent political theorist George Kateb (I’m actually pretty baffled about how it could be that I didn’t know of him until late last year), so I’m pretty thrilled he agreed to write the lead essay for this month’s Cato Unbound on the value of patriotism. A thoroughgoing individualist, he doesn’t find much value in it. Here is an especially fine passage:
The brute fact of patriotism is made brute by the inveterate inclination in men to associate virility with the exertion involved in killing and risking death. No theory can ever defeat or discredit this inclination, which helps to engender the fantasy that the competition of political units is the highest kind of team sports. Men love teams, love to live in a world where they are called on to back or play for their team against other teams, even though the sport of war is soaked in blood. Socratic notions of gratitude or Jamesian notions of infinite indebtedness are not necessary for this love. In the sport, where aristocrats used to play their games, elites now mobilize groups or masses to slaughter each other. Men can become peace-loving for a while, but not forever. The women who love them encourage their inclination to see team sports as the essence of their masculinity, and to call patriotic this inclination when it is projected into politics. The pity is that men lend their energies to a state that sooner or later embarks on an inherently unjust imperialist career and thus gets constantly engaged in policies that are deliberated in secrecy, and sustained by secrecy and propaganda, and removed from meaningful public deliberation. Patriotism is indispensable for sustaining this career of anti-democracy.
Now, I know a lot of folks think there is a kind of benign patriotism that is centered on the celebration of the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution and the culture that values them. Maybe. But go to GOPAC and tell me that the patriotism of liberal principles, and not the vulgar “highest kind of team sports” eagles and bunting and wiretaps version, is the most salient incarnation of patriotism in America.
March 10th, 2008 20:48
Indeed the difference between patriotism and nationalism should be emphasized. Proudhon was a French (regionalist) patriot, for example, and as an anarchist about the furthest thing from the vulgar nationalists of the GOPAC.
March 10th, 2008 22:11
Will,
Did you invite John McCain, or one of his intellectual supporters (if you can find some), to participate?
March 10th, 2008 23:38
I was intrigued by the article as well—in fact, I wrote a response to it.
I completely agree with Dain, above. Nationalism is different from patriotism. The problem with Kateb’s essay is not only that it confuses the two, but that the confusion destroys any logical basis for truly loving one’s country.
March 11th, 2008 07:42
Matthew,
I think your response confuses patriotism with a general sort of taking other people into account in your social welfare function. What is the logical basis for valuing one group of people above another? Isn’t that the really important distinction of patriotism or nationalism?
March 11th, 2008 11:00
I think that he sets up a straw man when discussing what love of parents is in the first place, and errors proceed from that. He claims that love of parents is based on purely the idea that parents are responsible for one’s coming into existence.
I think that’s too limited a view of love of one’s parents. Is the love between siblings that different from love of parents? But by his measure, siblings are no different from one’s country– one does not owe them existence, even though they may have shaped one, therefore they are a thing “altogether different.”
Surely part of the nature of the love involved in family is that it is an inalienable bond; this is something that he touches on in his discussion. Furthermore, that bond does not imply that one merely does whatever one’s parents orders– surely that’s not true at the least in modern society. The very nature of the inalienable bond between children and parents, or between siblings, enables us to criticize our siblings and parents in ways that other friends might not. Because there is less worry (though still some) of the relationship being abandoned or destroyed, one feels freer to criticize without worrying that one will say something that will cause an irreparable break. That is a large part of why families fight– because they are freer to criticize without being seen as an enemy or outsider. This is why people attempt to establish patriotic bona fides before offering criticism. (And, related to the origin of the chestnut that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.)
Now, of course there is a reasonable argument that one should leave or disassociate from someone rather than criticize, even for their own good. That is, however, a different argument that the one that Professor Kateb made.
March 11th, 2008 12:44
I can see what you mean, Josh. Maybe I should have explained it better in my post.
Basically, I think that people affect each other, so much that they form social units, whether those be family, nation, or something else. The closer you are—physically, culturally, and institutionally—to people, the more you affect them. Therefore, when the interests of your group conflict with those of another, you should prefer your own. Of course, the only time you need to do that is when the other group is being antagonistic, and won’t cooperate or share with yours.
March 11th, 2008 18:06
[...] Wilkinson highlights an essay on patriotism by political theorist George [...]
March 11th, 2008 19:11
[...] of the nature and value, or lack thereof, of patriotism. Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty and Will Wilkerson, though both finding merit in many of the individual points, provide rather divergent overarching [...]
March 11th, 2008 19:59
Apparently not white men.