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A Defense of American Patriotism
The question of patriotism is a contentious one nowadays, inspiring of fiery rebuttals and visceral reactions. It is strange to think of something that has so historically been a fixture of civic life as being so suddenly controversial. Patriotism, in our present environment, is not quite the unifying glue that it once was. A territory for one to set aside one’s partisan particulars and confess a transcendent loyalty to one’s country has morphed into something more undesirable and fractious. Nowadays, the once sedate concept of patriotism has acquired new powers of vexation, and it appears drawn out of relative obscurity, dislodged from its previous positioning as a cultural background and thrust into the land of national debate.
The ideal of patriotism has become splintered down the center, largely by the joint actions of the Left and Right political factions in a historically unprecedented fashion. The anxious chatterings of “political polarization” are not new: we have been witness to them for years. Some will say that this is a reality due to the increasing extremity of political positions but perhaps it is not so much a result of worrying herding to the ends of the political spectrum but moreso the increasingly disappearing “neutral ground” between the two sides. This neutral ground should not be mistaken for an area of “compromise” but rather, should be thought of as a common…
