War, Violence, and the Psychology of Indifference: Patriotic Fixations

Part I: Only Americans Matter
Part II: We Draw Our Circle too Small

Last time, I mentioned the first reason we as Americans tend to both individually and collectively — individually as preoccupied public population and collectively via the manufacturing of consent through the politically driven corporate media machine — suppress and ignore non-domestic acts of violence: the political symbolism of the current Bush regime and the reality of assumed indirect consequence.

I concluded by noting that we “draw our circle too small” only including in our spheres our care those who look and act like us; in short, those who remain “citizens” of the particular and arbitrarily created — usually as a result of geopolitics and social convenience — “nation-state” in which we live.

The second justification for our indifference stems from, and is the direct result of, the first.  It is the intense and deep-seated emotional feeling most of every American, of virtually every political stripe is overcome with this time of the year.  I am of course speaking of the feeling of many, rightly or wrongly, call patriotism.

Patriotism may very well be one of the most elusive and slippery American concepts.  Ask ten people to define it and you’re likely get ten different answers.  Right-wingers will stereotypically use the word in reference to the euphoric feeling of rallying around the freedom flag in wartime, while left-wingers will describe it as the euphoric feeling of dissenting and “speaking truth to power” as if, as Ward Churchill puts it, power doesn’t know what it is doing.  The similarity is both will likely describe it as being some sort of euphoric — almost sexual — feeling, though they may not use the exact phrase.

Despite its elusive nature, I will try to speak to what I believe patriotism is taken to mean in it’s broader context.

Last week being the 4th of July, I ran across many a blog post and many a news article speaking to patriotism.  Here is a not so diverse range of samples.

From “Surviving the Fourth of July”:

“Patriotic duty and the disease of nationalism lure us to deny our common humanity. Yet to pursue, in the broadest sense, what is human, what is moral, in the midst of conflict or under the heel of the totalitarian state is often a form of self-destruction.”

From “Why I’m Not Patriotic”:

“In the last five years in Iraq, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died because the United States, the patriarch of patriotism, saw fit to impose itself, without just cause, on another country. But the excuse was patriotism, wrapped in Bush’s brand of messianic militarism: that we, the great Americans, have a duty to deliver “God’s gift of freedom” to every corner of the world.”

From “Some Thoughts on Patriotism”:

“The Japanese pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were being patriotic. The German people who supported Hitler and his conquests were being patriotic, fighting for the Fatherland. All the Latin American military dictators who overthrew democratically-elected governments and routinely tortured people were being patriotic — saving their beloved country from “communism”.”

“I don’t make much of a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Some writers equate patriotism with allegiance to one’s country and government, while defining nationalism as sentiments of ethno-national superiority. However defined, in practice the psychological and behavioral manifestations of nationalism and patriotism — and the impact of such sentiments on actual policies — are not easily distinguishable.”

I think there’s some truth in all of these.  It seems to me that patriotism has implicitly, and, in some cases explicitly, become dangerously related, if not synonymous to, zealous nationalism and — even worse — ethnocentrism.  The United States actions not only since 9/11, but throughout the 20th century — and really, since 1776 — comprise not just a grand imperial narrative, but a hegemonic case-in-point of this sentiment.

This naturally leads to the indifference and suppression of and non-domestic acts violence and aggression; that is, acts of violence and aggression directed at persons — if they are even to be called persons, the U.S. DoD makes a natural habit of not doing so — who aren’t “American” and don’t serve the “interests” of the “good ‘ole U.S. of A.”  By the way, if anyone can tell me what these so-called “interests” are, I’d be delighted.

So to sum — our patriotic fixations have not only blinded our eyes, allowing us to collectively deny the very values we claim to hold so dear, it has spawned our attitude of indifference, suppression and outright ignorance of the basic rights of persons who happen to not be “American.” Those persons are reduced to abstractions, objects of conquest, and tools for imperial expansion unless of course they can serve some sort of national “interest.”

In light of that, I don’t claim to be a “patriot” to any country — it is only by sheer happenstance that I am an American in the first place — and when forced to choose between patriotism and our common humanity, I emphatically choose the latter.  Furthermore, as one claiming to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, I have no business whatsoever identifying myself as a patriot to any country let alone one that acts out blatant imperial aggression.  To do so would be not only anti-human, but anti-christ.

The confusion and melding of patriotism and religion is a very dangerous, slippery slope that only adds fuel to the fire.  But that is another matter for another time.

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