Patriotism is defined as a deep love and devoted defense of one’s country. The term is also referred to as national loyalty, allegiance, and public spirit.
In the United States, we even take this one step further, coining the term Americanism for the preference of the United States and all of its institutions. As far as I can tell, this kind of specific patriotism is unique to America. I, for one, have never heard anyone say Italianism, Canadianism, Australianism, Zimbabweism, or the like.
We typically define Americanism by sarcastically pointing out things that are un-American, such as tiny cars, homes without air-conditioning, television sets smaller than forty inches; the list goes on. But what is the true, deep essence of Americanism?
If you were to ask random people on the street, most would probably say that America is about freedom, both bestowing it and celebrating it. Many may also mention Christianity as the reigning moral compass. Others would describe America as the land of opportunity and say that you have the right to be who you truly are in this country. American pride is often seen as the driving force behind justice, equality, civil rights, and, above all, freedom.
However, throughout history citizens have done terrible things to each other in the name of American pride:
- During the American Revolution, patriots tarred, feathered, and otherwise violently attacked and intimidated Tories who chose to remain loyal to Britain, even though they were fighting the spread of tyranny.
- When the Ku Klux Klan reformed less than one hundred years ago, its members flogged and lynched countless innocents while adhering to the organization’s new, simple slogan of “100 percent Americanism.”
- In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings sparked the far-reaching Communist witch hunt, which resulted in thousands of people being blacklisted and losing their jobs and homes. Hundreds of filmmakers, writers, and actors were erased from history books, while businesses across the country went under because of suspected, and often imagined, subversive activity.
- During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, hate groups brutally assaulted and even lynched nonviolent activists who were trying to expose unjust Jim Crow laws.
- In the days following the September 11th terrorist attacks, hate crimes against Muslims across the country increased and included vandalism, arson, assault, harassment, shootings, and even murder.
Many of these events may seem to have taken place too long ago to still be relevant, but their legacies remain. Remnants of the Ku Klux Klan live on in the doctrines of other white supremacist groups, the Civil Rights movement took place within my parents’ lifetimes, and just last year protesters opposed Park 51, a multi-faith community center close to ground zero in New York City because it included a Muslim mosque. Clearly, these feelings haven’t disappeared completely in the nearly two and a half centuries since the end of the Revolutionary War.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
Very nice piece of work, Amanda.
As one of them durn furriners living in America, and having travelled a fair bit, I can tell you that there are such things as Canadianism, Italianism etc, even if they aren't known by those names. People the world over live their lives confident in the knowledge that theirs is the greatest nation ever to grace the Earth. They are usually aware that people living elsewhere might not agree, but beyond a vague sense of pity for the unfortunate non-Frenchman or non-Japanese or whatever, they don't much care.
The difference with American patriots is that not only do they believe that theirs is the greatest country on Earth, they expect everybody else to agree that it is too - and can get very confused and upset when they don't.
2 - Amanda Stonebarger
Thank you! I really appreciate your perspective, and I think you make a really good point about the expectations of American patriotism.
3 - Baronius
from "A Narrower Atlantic", Prospect Magazine 2009:
Yes, Americans are patriotic and nationalistic, but according to the World Values Survey, undertaken between 1999 and 2001, not more than some Europeans. Unsurprisingly, Germans are least proud of their nation, and rather unexpectedly, the Portugueseâ€"not the Americansâ€"are most, with the Irish tied for second place. Granted, Americans are more likely to think that their country is better than most others. But more Portuguese, Danes and Spaniards feel that the world would be improved if other people were like them, and a larger fraction of Americans admit that there are aspects of their country that shame them than do the Germans, Austrians, Spanish, French, Danes and Finns.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Although, Baronius, one significant thing to note about that survey is that it was conducted before 9/11. Has anything similar been undertaken since, I wonder?
5 - zingzing
it is interesting though, isn't it doc? i wonder if europeans think americans think more highly of themselves than they actually do. people outside of america have just as many false impressions of america as people in america have of those outside of america.
and american history since 9/11 has been a big old mixture of good and bad. i'd bet both irrational patriotism and somewhat rational shame have risen in america. and what with so many thinking this country is on the wrong path is so many different ways... i wonder if things wouldn't be even more off from your final paragraph in #1.
silly ferner.
6 - roger nowosielski
Tocqueville didn't. He nailed it down as good as any American man/woman of letters.
7 - roger nowosielski
And then, there was Montaigne, sharp-eyed with respect to his own culture and without, equally critical of the human condition.
But it does take detachment.
8 - roger nowosielski
And Voltaire, and ...
9 - Dan
"If we cannot accept each other within America's fifty states, we cannot hope to succeed in the world as a whole."
Amanda has no awareness of her hyperintolerance for traditional white american principles and values.
Such an alien perspective from my own.
If I were to express the view that the whole point of white American civilization extending it's goodness to failed third world inhabitants around the globe was based on the notion that diverse peoples would learn and master values like individuality, capitalism, and meritocracy.
Since that idea hasn't seemed to pan out, and group rights are all the rage, and Constitutional rights are skirted to eternally address fictionalized "historical wrongs"...
Would it be a reasonable viewpoint, all "rich" and "dynamic" and everything to suggest that earlier traditional Americans were wrong to assign rigid orthodoxy to the original egalitarian theory. (before it was discarded in favor of the "diversity is strength" creepy mantra to cover for the failure)
10 - Baronius
You hear a lot of stories about Americans abroad who are embarrassed about their home land. I've never met a foreigner in the US who speaks ill about his native country (outside of people from Africa or the USSR who escaped some terrible conditions).
I think that a lot of it, on the American side, is the intensity of our political divide. At any given time there's 40%+ of our electorate who's ashamed of our president.
11 - Dr Dreadful
Since that idea hasn't seemed to pan out...
Gee, I wonder why.
I think it might have just a teensy-weensy bit to do with the fact that "white American civilization" decided unilaterally to "extend its goodness" around the world on the basis that their societies had "failed", without bothering to consult these "failed" peoples on the question of whether this was actually true.
12 - Dr Dreadful
You hear a lot of stories about Americans abroad who are embarrassed about their home land.
As someone from abroad who's travelled a lot with Americans, I have to say that's unusual.
There are American travellers - particularly young ones - who make a point of sewing Canadian flags on their backpacks, but this is to deter unwanted attention because of the negative image Americans abroad have (and because most Europeans can't distinguish between American and Canadian accents).
This negative image is sometimes political, and sometimes to do with the unfortunate habit American tourists tend to have of loudly complaining about the amenities and services on offer in the country they're visiting and boasting about how much better things are back home.
It isn't entirely a caricature. My own wife used to do it when I first met her, at which time she was such a traveller. She doesn't any more.
13 - roger nowosielski
The emigre community in Paris, the lost generation, was critical.
In fact, the loss of the American Dream theme goes back to F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon) if not sooner.
14 - roger nowosielski
Wonder what Hemingway would think of present-day America? He'd probably shoot himself in the head not once, not twice, but three times.
But Hemingway was a communist, un-American, and certainly no liberal.
Oh, well!
15 - Zingzing
Roger, I don't think you can say "liberal" in the 1920s and equate it with today's liberal, be that good or bad. Hemingway, in the end, was different from Fitzgerald and I don't know what they would have to say to each other.
16 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
You have no idea how many times I've seen my fellow sailors overseas spread the same kind of "America's the best of everything" crap...but the sad thing is that most of them probably wouldn't have been half so bad if they didn't feel the uber-patriotic peer pressure i.e. Thou Shalt Always Sing the Praises of America because inside every non-American is an American yearning to breathe free, or something like that.
17 - Clavos
You have an authoritative source for that "Hemingway was a Communist" statement, Roger?
He was known to have supported the anti-Franco rebels, but I never heard that he was an actual Communist, he was supporting the anti-Franco forces because they were anti-Franco.
18 - Arch Conservative
"If we cannot accept each other within America's fifty states, we cannot hope to succeed in the world as a whole."
"Amanda has no awareness of her hyperintolerance for traditional white american principles and values."
Well duh....she doesn't even know that there are fifty-seven states.
19 - jamminsue
Arch, Fifty seven? Last time I looked at the flag, there were 50 stars.
20 - zingzing
jamminsue, archie refers to obama's reference to the amount of territories the us holds, including the states. archie just thinks we're all too dumb to figure it out.
he's been telling the same joke for over three years now and he still thinks it's funny...
21 - roger nowosielski
@15
That label was just thrown in to complete the string. But these people weren't happy puppies and found the air of Paris more refreshing and intellectually stimulating.
If you want a more recent example, take Norman Mailer. And I'll always choose the wisdom of a novelist over any of BC luminaries, myself included.
22 - roger nowosielski
@17
tongue in cheek, Clavos, just as "un-American" and "no liberal" were used. Why? To accentuate how true-blue Americans would be apt to call him.
(But we know, of course, that communists played no small part in the anti-Franco revolt.)
23 - roger nowosielski
Didn't, BTW, US support Franco?
24 - handyguy
hyperintolerance for traditional white american principles and values
This comment stupefied me. No one else seems to have been very shocked by it. We should consider the source, I guess.
But appending "white" to "traditional American values" is just so...wrong in so many ways. To name two, Native Americans, and blacks brought here as slaves, have as much claim on history as white folks, if less power. But even outside that context, why "white american principles and values"?
Great article, Amanda.
25 - roger nowosielski
Exactly, why "white"?
But that was Arch's "clever" way of debunking the main thrust of the article.
After all, he's a Tea Partier to the very core, bemoaning the loss of status on the part of the poor, downtrodden whites.
One wonders whether Ron Paul would agree.