My Country: What's To Love? How To Show It?

Abstract

My Country:What's To Love? How To Show It? Drew Maciag (bio) John Bodnar, Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 305 pp. Illustrations, acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95. Ben Railton, Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. xx + 194 pp. Acknowledgements, a note on sources, index. $36.00. John Bodnar, Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 305 pp. Illustrations, acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95. Ben Railton, Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. xx + 194 pp. Acknowledgements, a note on sources, index. $36.00. 2021 turned out to be a dangerously opportune year for new books on American patriotism. The year began with President Donald Trump praising insurgents who invaded the U.S. Capitol as "great patriots." Some weeks later, after the (by then former) president was impeached by Congress for a second time, an opinion poll found that three-quarters of Republicans still agreed that Trump was a "true patriot."1 So, if ever there was a time for coming to terms with our symbolic national language, surely it had arrived. Of course, many of our standard political buzzwords refer to lofty concepts that are subject to diverse interpretations. Linguistic icons like "freedom," "equality," and "progress" appeal to Americans precisely because they evoke optimistic, open-ended ideals. "Patriotism," on the other hand, is not so much an ideal as it is an investment in identity. Unlike ideals, patriotism can never be universal. Patriotism is always grounded in a particular place and can only be loyal to some specific sense of belonging. Although "patriotism" is generally defined as "love of one's country," the idea of patriotism cannot meaningfully exist in the abstract. In contrast to (say) "liberty" or "justice," patriotism has no recognizable moral complexion until it acquires a real-world host. Patriots can be equally devoted to a nation that embraces multiracial democracy, or to an autocratic nation that perpetrates a genocidal Holocaust. Hence, when we witness the expression of patriotic feeling or the assertion of patriotic will, we can be sure that beneath the trappings lies a distinctive set of social and political beliefs. Patriotism is often most vibrant—or most virulent—when it serves as a tool for constructing, reinforcing, or proclaiming some canonic core of national values and traits. Controversies over patriotism are seldom about the wisdom [End Page 590] of behaving patriotically. Instead, battles are fought over what kind of nation myriad "patriots" want to call home. John Bodnar's Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11 demonstrates the instrumentalist use of patriotism by dividing contemporary actors into two camps that adhere to competing visions of what acting patriotically means. Bodnar calls the opposing factions "war-based patriots" and "empathic patriots," and his classifications align with our already-ingrained understanding of the ideological polarization that has plagued society in recent decades. War-based patriotism tends to be conservative, absolutist, exclusive, and harsh, while empathic patriotism is liberal, tolerant, inclusive, and humanitarian. Warbased patriotism relies on pleasant myths, while empathic patriotism deals in difficult realities. War-based patriots believe that the United States is morally righteous and beyond reproach; empathic, critical patriots aim at correcting national flaws. War-based patriots seek to enforce obedience to authority and to defend the status quo; empathic patriots seek to protect civil liberties and the right to dissent, and to alleviate human suffering. As important, war-based patriotism tends toward a white, Christian identity, and empathic patriotism tends toward a pluralistic, multicultural outlook. Bodnar offers a pre-9/11 introduction that roots modern American patriotism in the memorialization of soldiers killed during the Civil War. That version of war-based patriotism—steeped in the glorification of dying for one's country—was enhanced during the hyper-patriotism of World War I, and it became more systemic and persistent during World War II and the Cold War. Although earlier versions of empathic patriotism often challenged war-based patriotism, it was not until the unpopular Vietnam War that the more critical...