The Psychology of Patriotism

Abstract

PATRIOTISM can be a force for good or evil. American patriotism helped vanquish fascism; German patriotism helped create and sustain it. Wars of national liberation depend on patriotic fervor to oppose colonial rule; unfortunately, ethnic cleansing draws on this same fervor. Appeals to the transcendent value of the nation-state can be progressive or regressive. But regardless of the purpose to which patriotism is harnessed, all forms of it share similar psychological dynamics. Patriotic symbols such as the nation--including its manifestations in images like the flag or the Founding Fathers--represent the fulfillment of our longings for connectedness and safety. In this sense, the nation is a metaphor for a family. Families serve the function of providing psychic security and attachment. We project onto ever-expanding forms of social authority the longings originally satisfied by parents in childhood. It's easy to see the workings of these two needs in our collective responses to the attack of 9/11 and to the devastation visited on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. In the first instance, people looked to government to provide security and defense, including a muscular retaliation against our enemies. On a symbolic level, looked to our leaders to provide the protection and strength usually associated with fathers. In the second instance, people looked to government to provide care and nurturance, a safety net--qualities associated in our culture with mothers. While patriotism draws a great deal of its energy from the unconscious mind, it is not reducible to it. That is, social attitudes and behaviors are the products of a complex interplay between the rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious, private and public factors. Nevertheless, one of the reasons that patriotic fervor can be so passionate--and, as a result, so vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation--is that its roots lie in deep levels of the psyche. Patriotism is a container for a range of psychological needs that originally play themselves out in the family. Over 50 years of psychological research have established that human beings have an innate need for attachment and recognition and that not only is the satisfaction of this need essential for psychological and physical survival, but its frustration is one of the primary sources of mental suffering. (1) I see such suffering ever day in my consulting room--families in which parents can't empathize with their children or each other, or narcissistically use their children, or neglect them altogether. I see children who grow up taking care of others instead of themselves or who retreat from intimacy because of fears of rejection and abandonment. Furthermore, the helplessness of the human infant and its absolute dependence on adult caregivers for survival generates a powerful need for protection and an idealization of the power and authority of these caregivers. When parents are protective and reasonable, children grow up with a basic sense of security and an ability to rely on others. When parents fail to protect children and exercise their authority in arbitrary, frightening, or inconsistent ways, children grow up with a basic sense of insecurity and difficulty trusting others. Unfortunately, this latter scenario is all too common. However, the fact that our needs for connection and security are often thwarted does not mean that they go away. We continue to long for recognition and relationships of mutuality even as often suffer from loneliness. And continue to seek security even as feel unsafe and unprotected. In this context, it's easy to understand the powerful psychic meanings of patriotism. To feel like an American, to identify with the United States of America, is to feel at once safe and connected. Patriotism establishes a we that satisfies the longings for connectedness and affiliation that are so often frustrated in our private lives. …