"Patriotism can be morally corrupting."

Simon Keller works with topics in ethics and political philosophy, and the philosophy of mental health and mental illness. He has published extensively on relationship issues such as friendship, family relationships, love and patriotism. He is a professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. The book The Limits of Loyalty ble i 2009 tildelt American Philosophical Association Book Prize.

Mitja Sardoč: - The willingness to kill or die for one's country has traditionally been seen as the most profound and genuine form of expressing patriotism. How can we understand this link between patriotism and violence?

Simon Keller: When a country is at war, an appeal to patriotism is a powerful tool to get people to kill and die for it. It is also beyond doubt that a country only emerges through its ability to defend itself militarily against external threats – so perhaps true patriotic loyalty will have to boil down to a willingness to defend one's country on the battlefield.

On the other hand, everyone should be willing to die for something, and perhaps also to kill for something: for justice, for the things that matter, to fight fascism, to save good from evil. The will to kill or die is not wrong in itself, as long as it is for the right things.

I don't think a country like that is worth killing or dying for. In part, therefore, I argue that patriotism, if it must exist, should be ironic: You can engage in it if you want, but when things get serious, you should be able to turn it off and see it for what it really is. I would say the same thing about killing or dying for a church or a football club.

So I think the real problem here is not the close connection between patriotism and violence, but rather that between patriotism and the idolization of one's country, which makes it seem more important than it really is—and thus among the things of worth to kill or die for.

- Despite its central position in the 'pantheon' of political ideals, 'patriotism' remains a contested term that continues to divide its advocates and critics. What points do you most disagree about?

The biggest disagreement is whether you can be a patriot while accepting the basic moral equality of all people, regardless of where they come from. To put it another way: The disagreement concerns the compatibility of patriotism with liberalism – or liberal morality – which claims that all people are morally equal, and that the moral perspective is fundamentally impartial. This is where most philosophers begin. What they say about it leads them to different answers to the questions 'What is patriotism?' and 'is patriotism virtuous?'.

Many liberal theorists believe that you can be a patriot while accepting the basic idea that all people are morally equal. They distinguish between varieties of patriotism and say that some of them are virtuous, or at least accepted.

I am thinking here of philosophers such as Marcia Baron, Igor Primoratz, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Stephen Nathanson and Jürgen Habermas. They say that it is morally acceptable to be patriotic as long as patriotism is secondary to the commitment to universal human rights, or that the patriotism is aimed at improving the moral reputation of the country, or that it includes a recognition that the patriotism of individuals from other countries is also legitimate .

Others argue that you cannot be a true patriot while treating all people as fundamentally equal. A true patriot takes the perspective of his own country and puts the nation's projects and people first – at least when it comes to some morally important matters. Philosophers who take this view offer more substantial characterizations of patriotism – or of 'genuine', 'genuine' or 'true' patriotism.

For example, they might argue that if you are truly patriotic, you identify with your country and its values, and you are prepared to defend them, even at the expense of the interests of other countries and peoples. So you simply cannot be both – patriotic and impartial. These philosophers – I am one of them – see a conflict between patriotism and liberal morality. Some go even further and claim that patriotism is a vice, and others believe that we should reject liberal morality.

"Martha Nussbaum rejects patriotism because she believes it cannot be reconciled with liberalism."

Martha Nussbaum, for example, rejects patriotism because she believes it cannot be reconciled with liberalism. Alasdair MacIntyre rejects liberalism because he believes it cannot be reconciled with patriotism.

There are also two other major sources of disagreement. One concerns the psychology of patriotism: How do you have to think about your country to be patriotic? George Kateb, myself and several others believe that to be a patriot you must imagine that your country is far more than it really is – more than any nation can be – and therefore patriotism involves an overestimation of one's own country. Those who disagree describe what you love when you love a country patriotically – in different ways –
and why such love makes sense.

"To be a patriot you must imagine that your country is far more than it really is."

There is also disagreement about the relationship between patriotism and good citizenship. If you are a good citizen of your country, you care about the country and worry about it. But is it necessarily a patriotic concern? Does a good citizen have to be a patriot? There is less discussion on this question, or at least less argument—it is often taken for granted that a good citizen's allegiance is the same as that of a patriot. But this is not obvious.

- Which aspect of patriotism do you find most problematic?

The deliberate ignorance that is implicit in considering one's own country as something special. Countries are large and complicated, and their history contains some of the worst and some of the best of human possibilities. No one ever meets most of his countrymen. To be a patriot, however, you must imagine that your country has a tangible character that defines its 'true' nature, that makes it worthy of loyalty and sacrifice, and that distinguishes it from other countries.

I think this active construction of a country's character is the cause of most of the harm that comes from patriotism. It causes the patriot to hold erroneous beliefs and resist evidence that would challenge the idealized image of the country. It drives them to see countrymen who do not conform to the country's character as inferior citizens, and it tempts them to adopt rarefied and stereotypical views of people from other countries—a belief that differences in human character coincide with national boundaries.

- There is extensive literature on patriotism in such diverse disciplines as political science, sociology, culture, philosophy, history and psychology. What has been philosophy's most important contribution to the debate?

The moral assessment of patriotism. The social sciences tend to treat patriotism as something that simply 'is there'. Philosophy asks whether patriotism is reasonable, what value it can have, and how it can promote or conflict with other values.

This has led philosophers to relate patriotism to various moral and political theories: liberalism, communitarianism, republicanism, Marxism, consequentialism and so on. The debate about patriotism becomes a litmus test for wider moral disagreements.

By considering patriotism from a moral point of view, philosophy has produced sharpened descriptions of the concept. It is too easy to call patriotism a 'love of the country', loyalty to the country or identity with the country. There are many different types of love, loyalty and identity, all with different psychological demands and behavioral consequences.

"Patriotism involves an unreflective and idealized view of the past."

By offering a moral perspective, philosophers have articulated alternatives to patriotism. If we are not to be patriotic, must we instead be selfish individualists? Or rootless cosmopolitans? Appiah's 'cosmopolitan patriotism' is a more nuanced alternative to patriotism, for example. I have been talking about 'world citizenship', an alternative to both patriotism and rootless cosmopolitanism.

- Which of the many ideas and qualities associated with patriotism – loyalty, unity, pride, fidelity, courage, solidarity, identity, virtue, citizenship, nationality, 'common good' and responsibility – do you think is the least explored?

In addition to citizenship, as I mentioned earlier, the notion of identity is underexplored and ripe for good new philosophical work. Many of us naturally identify ourselves through our connection to a country. This is how we present ourselves abroad, we use our emotional energy when we watch the Olympics or the World Cup, and we observe international politics or think about art and culture.

Identifying with a country is an active, perhaps conscious process. It involves a perception of the country, a perception of oneself, and a perception of how this fits together. It is expressed through patriotism, and enables several emotions – pride, shame, guilt, revenge, humiliation and entitlement.

- Patriotism has been criticized for its non-reflective and idealized view of the past, its exclusionary attitude towards the present and its reluctant understanding of citizenship. Which of these, or other objections, do you find most pressing?

Reluctant membership is something we have to live with: We are born into a context, a family, a community with a history, and that entails moral obligations, even if we had no choice about where we were born.

Patriotism implies an unreflective and idealized view of the past. To be patriotic you have to imagine that your country deserves and is worthy of your love, and that means imagining that it is fundamentally good. This may entail interpreting or ignoring historical facts as necessary.

This way of seeing the past creates two forms of exclusion. First, it excludes people from other places and portrays them as people who do not share the country's positive 'history'. Second, it excludes the country's inhabitants who do not fit into the story.

Finally, I wonder if patriotism can be morally corrupting, since it so often involves making excuses for, or at least overlooking, horrible crimes. We all know that nations have done terrible things. If we are patriotic, I suppose we believe that these terrible crimes are outweighed by the good, or that they do not represent the true nature of the nation—or that they can be justified by the circumstances, and therefore the country is still worthy of our love and pride. I therefore suspect that patriotic love can influence us to minimize terrible acts.

- What are the most important challenges faced by academics who work with questions related to patriotism?

The biggest challenge is to explain what it means to adopt a mature, informed, morally enlightened, clear, constructive attitude towards one's country in the modern world. Nations are important. It is within countries that we vote, make laws, form political cultures, establish welfare programs and education systems.

But can one love one's country without misrepresenting it? Should one even have an emotional relationship with it, or see it only as an administrative unit or an instrument?

I would like to get to a point where we can think about these issues on their merits, rather than approaching them via labels like 'patriotism', 'nationalism' and 'cosmopolitanism'.

Translated into Norwegian by Iril Kolle.
Copyroght Eurozine.

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