Are Patriots Killers?
Yes, this post has a bizarre title. Who would say that patriots are killers? George Kateb would, in an essay at Cato Unbound. His exact words are: “The idea of patriotism is inseparable from killing and dying for your country. A good patriot is a good killer.”
Kateb’s Argument
You should read Kateb’s argument before reading my response. If, however, you’re not going to get around to it, here’s a summary:
“Patriotism is being willing to die for one’s country. The only way to justify it is to say that your country somehow owns you. This has often been done by using a parent-child analogy (think “fatherland” and “mother country”). The analogy is flawed because a country is not a person, and because we actually do owe our lives to our parents. When people are patriotic, the state inevitably manipulates their sentiments, and an elite ends up sending the men of the country out to imperialistic wars. So patriotism becomes one more form of team spirit, a sport for men where the players kill each other and the women support them.”
Why Kateb Is Wrong
I agree that the idea of patriotism is closely connected with dying for one’s country. That is simply because whether you would die for someone is a clear indicator of whether you care about them more than yourself.
His analysis fails, however, in two ways.
First, he attacks the thing by attacking its common justifications. Yes, patriotism has been badly defended. Yes, Socrates thought the citizen was a subject of the state. And yes, the reality is that the government (and society) is the child of the people, not the other way around. But that does not mean that the willingness to die for one’s country is bad. Nor does it mean that such willingness is must be based on a conception of the people as subjects.
Second, he attacks the thing by attacking its abuses. (In debate lingo, his harms are not inherent.) Governments and elites commonly use patriots to further their petty schemes. When they do that, however, they are exploiting a noble virtue, not a vice. The fact that people are taken advantage of just shows that they’re gullible.
The Metaphor Revised
A family is a good metaphor for real patriotism only if we realize that each member is a part of the whole. You don’t usually choose your family; you’re born into it. The family doesn’t own you and you don’t owe the family anything, but you hang together because you love each other and because you’re a unit. As a unit, each member has responsibilities to all the other ones, and everything he does affects the whole. Family members should be willing to give their lives for each other, not because any one member is superior to the others, but because all the members depend upon each other and support each other.
Your greatest duty to your family and to your country is to keep their welfare in mind. Blind loyalty is no loyalty. Partners in crime are worse than innocent loners. If you really love your family or country, you won’t needlessly kill people because they want you to.
But family members and citizens must often make hard decisions. You should always support the members of your group and the group as a whole, even when you can’t support its actions. You support your parent or your brother even if they’re in jail, and you support your country even if it’s in an unjust war. Sometimes that means trying to fix the problem. But sometimes that means just living with it and doing everything you can to care for and encourage the group without implicating yourself in its guilt.
Patriotism is often taken advantage of. People often support their country’s actions without considering whether the actions are right or wrong. That is not patriotism at all; in fact it is the opposite. If there were no patriotism, people would have no reason to improve the nation they lived in, and no reason to oppose its bad decisions and help mend its faults.
What Patriotism Really Is
Patriotism is what makes a general ride out into the front of the battlefield like George Washington instead of abandoning his troops when they’re in a hopeless position like Napoleon. It is what makes one generation sacrifice their own comfort for the next generation. It is what makes the strongest people in a society defend the weakest, instead of selling out or using their strength to save themselves and run away. Patriotism is founded on the opposite of Kateb’s libertarian theory of self-ownership. Patriotism is founded on the theory of self-stewardship, which holds that others always come before self, and the body comes before its members. Cowards or connivers may try to manipulate patriots in order to have a whole country serve an elite, or the whole world serve a single nation, but it is patriots who will resist the former scenario for the sake of the oppressed, and the latter for the sake of the oppressors, for tyrants always lose more happiness by their cruelty than they gain by their power.
In a word, patriotism is when an individual choses to serve his nation’s interests rather than his own. It is not the patriotic who are killers, but the craven, the selfish, and the indolent.
Note: For a related essay, see Cato’s Letters, No. 36: “On Loyalty.”
March 11th, 2008 at 5:38 am
So, patriotism=national collectivism?
You can have it.
And, it is often the patriotic who are killers. You can try to define your way out of it, but it will still be true.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Of course it’s true. Patriots are as misguided as anyone else. To love your country is to want what’s best for it, not to know what’s best for it. But you have to admit that self-sacrifice for the sake of your country is good when it is applied in the right cause.
Maybe our point of disagreement has to do with our view of policy. If you think imperialism would genuinely make our country better off, then a true (and well-informed) patriot would of course support statist/realist policies, which I think are wrong. But if imperialism is as bad for us as for the countries we abuse, then the best patriots are the most peaceful.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I’m not a big fan of self-sacrifice.
But, I can imagine that risking one’s life for a cause one values very highly can be the best thing to do. And, I’m certainly ok with violent self-defense, when that’s the best option.
But, I’m not tribalist. I don’t love my country (whatever that means) because it’s where I happen to have been born. And, I hope that I wouldn’t support many of the awful countries in the world if I had been born there.
I agree that there are great traditions, institutions, and people in the US that are worth defending. But, there’s nothing honorable about patriotism in general. It’s just another religion that encourages martyrdom.
I’m an individualist, not a collectivist. I think that the best life is one that pursues good values that were chosen.
Usually the best acts are those that enhance one’s own interest. There’s nothing inherently noble about putting others first (although sometimes helping others is the best thing to do). That’s a con that gives leaders a large supply of suckers.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:46 am
You are surrounded by people and have been since you were born. You couldn’t live without them. Your behavior affects them, and theirs affects you. Your habits, your language, and (yes) your values are mostly acquired by the social environment that people set up before you were around. You get to help shape it, but it shapes you a whole lot more.
You can deny “collectivism” in theory even while you live out its implications, or you can recognize that people are meant to live with other people, and accept that you have a duty to live with them nicely. Unless you have an island somewhere.
Your greatest duty is to the people you actually live with. That doesn’t mean it’s fine if people on the other side of the world are suffering. It just means that those around you deserve your attention more than those you don’t know.
When you say that helping others is sometimes the “best” thing to do, what do you mean? You seem to be saying either that “tribalism” is good sometimes and not others, or that helping others is only good when you get something out of it.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Yes, I value other people, and the positive externalities from social arrangements, a great deal, and I recognize an obligation to “live with them nicely.” And, I have a special relationship with my family, whom I love and have made commitments to.
Our sentiments evolved in an era when we depended on our local group, and competed with other groups for survival. There were no institutions that promoted trust and trade, so defending your group and hating and fearing others was very useful for survival.
But, that’s not the case today.
If I’m in an online technical forum, I’ll help someone regardless of what political jurisdiction he’s from. I see no reason to prefer one closer to mine, over one further (unless there’s a serious chance of a security issue).
And, while I value many of the services that the state provides (defense, courts, prisons), and I’ll happily pay for them, I don’t worship them or see any transcendent good in sacrifice for the whims of the state.
Helping others is sometimes the best thing to do because I value others (some more than others), and I’m often in a position to promote this value. Usually, they’re closer to me, but it’s not tribalism that motivates me.
And, I don’t get religious about it.
March 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I think we’re saying the same thing. As I said, you live out collectivism every day, so your denial of it is purely theoretical. It’s not special that you would help international members of an online form. I’m pretty sure McCain or Wolfowitz would do the same. But you would not help out in the case of “a serious chance of a security issue,” showing that you do love your country, and will support it when you have to chose between it and another, ceteris paribus.
If patriotism is to “worship” your country or “see any transcendent good in sacrifice for the whims of the state,” then I join you in rejecting it. But patriotism is simply being willing to sacrifice for your country—check the dictionary. That involves opposing harmful government whims. As I said in my post, without patriotism (loving the country, defined as its people) there is no reason to oppose the state when it tries to lead the country astray.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Ok. I’ll agree that the way you are using the term isn’t as bad as my impression of the way most people use the term.
I suspect McCain thinks about it the way I suggested, though.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Perhaps. But I respect him for his courage, if not for his opinions.