Grim – writing separately – makes a compelling counter-argument to yesterday’s post here and also here:
I don’t think patriotism is learned. I don’t think it can be taught. I know that Maines has to have encountered at least two of the most powerful examples of trying to teach or explain patriotism that have ever been composed — a woman in her line of work can’t have missed them.
Rather, patriotism arises naturally in the soul. Love of country is, I said in the piece above, like the love of your mother — it isn’t something you’re reasoned into…
Anti-patriots aren’t people who didn’t learn to be patriots. They’re people whose souls are damaged. Like a child whose mother hurts him, or spoils him, they have been for one cause or another broken from that natural love. They can only hate mother, or country, with that same force that they ought to have used to love her. It is a wound in the soul.
I think we are not so very far apart – without putting words to his pen, I believe Grim is talking about learning at an ?
Like you, I remember exactly when I first got the patriotism lesson, but it was from the other end so to speak. My small town encouraged kids to decorate their bikes and ride in the 4th of July parade. Being judged too young by my father to participate, I remember vividly standing on the curb watching the parade that included my two older brothers proudly riding their bikes laden with streamers and baseball cards attached with clothespins making that clackety-clack noise. On the walk to and from the parade my father explained about the country’s birthday and freedom. My father was a WWII vet so, as you can imagine, the talk was from the heart.
Hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Thanks for the prompt.
As Grim said:
“Ritual, faith, honor, and an example of love — these things will guide them to the health of the soul.”
In the summer of ‘68 we were stationed in Colorado, living near Fort Carson. My uncle, an Army medical technician, was visiting us from his recent Korea deployment. He and I were driving in his van on post in the late afternoon, when it was time for evening colors. All traffic stopped and everyone got out of their vehicles. Except me, the sullen pre-teen who didn’t feel like standing on hot asphalt to listen to a bugle just then. But my uncle parked the van, hopped out, and stood at attention, leaning against the blistering hot metal of the van for balance.
When colors was over, he hopped back in and we drove off. I asked him why he got out and stood at attention. He answered calmly: “It isn’t the stopping. Its the chance you get to start again, that somebody else paid for.”
When I say hopping, I mean that literally, because it was too hot to wear his prosthesis that day. Uncle Jack had lost his leg in the Battle of the Bulge, and 24 years later was still serving on active duty.
Lex, perhaps Grim is discussing the capacity to have patriotic feelings, while you are writing of the proper activation and cultivation of those feelings?
(and maybe I’ve said what you just did, though in simply terms…)
Well, if you want patriotism to be part of the over all dialogue, you actually have to talk about it and re-iterate it. Not because people won’t feel it otherwise (as Grim says, it’s really a concept you get by osmosis: this land is yours, you know it, you believe it, you don’t need anyone to tell you otherwise) however, if you don’t name it, how do you know that it is?
So, as FbL says, you’re both saying two important aspects of it. You must feel it and someone must tell you it is. Maines talking about not feeling it is full of it. She just doesn’t want to say it because she then might have to claim to be an American and part of that over all system that is doing something she disagrees with. That is juvenile denial, not mature idealism.
I came into this to use the word osmosis but I see Kat-Miss has beat me too it.
I don’t know about this osmosis business of learning, but I can tell many anecdotes about how when and where I was taught it, just like Lex.
I can also tell you I am teaching my own kids. Yep. Heck the house just reeks of it, between my shadow box, the I-love-me-wall (albeit tiny, unlike Lex’s) and the grandfathers airborne and cavalry pics. Every question you get from a kid is a teaching evolution for this sort of thing. Kids suck it up and no peer presure is going to unravel it if’n it’s done right. It should be a parental requirement.
It’s even better when the Boy Scout/Girl Scout leaders or football coaches teach same in parallel and help the parents out. The schools used to teach it too! Hell, at my public elementary school in CT long ago I won a DAR Award and we used to wear our Scout uniforms to school! I know it can be taught! It was part of what they called citizenship. Now, I suppose, it would be unwise to add something as judgemental as Patriotism to a government school citizenship class- Now they all seem to be about what they call public service and peculiar types of public service at that……
Learning Patriotism? Maybe. But if that thesis is correct I wish someone would start learnin them without it!
B2
I agree, it’s taught, thru actions, deeds and observances of the very nature of being American. And I do believe patriotism is a uniquely American state of mind.
My first experience truly feeling patriotism was as a young girl scout, 1974, at the age of 11. The country’s bicentennial was just around the corner, of course. And I was marching along with my troop in my town’s annual Memorial Day Parade. And I found myself in line to carry the American Flag during the parade. And not only carry it, but take it to the last distance to the cemetary for its final honors. In the pouring rain. NOTHING could get me out of that parade; none of my troop would leave either, despite torrential rains. I remember the feeling as my fellow scout handed the American Flag to me while we were marching – electric, pride – they were all there. MAN what a feeling that was. I caught a terrible cold after that – didn’t think I’d ever dry out. BEST. COLD. EVER.
Your father, and my father, were students of the same Master in school. He answered you exactly as my father answered me.
God, how I miss him, and how my son needs him now. I am half the Man he was. And my country needs so many more like him.
Subsunk
Patriotism……………. I believe, therefore I am. Seven years active, 17 years IRR, Reserve, National Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force; Retired August, 2003. Never did the education benefits, medical benefits or other “compensation” motivate me to serve my country willingly, voluntarily, unconditionally. No, it was PURE patriotism that sparked the fire in my heart to serve my country then…………….and now. Encouragingly, I have met many soldiers, 17 years or more my junior (I am 45……..my favorite caliber) who feel the same and I am so proud of them; words cannot express my gratitude for their service. Kevin, Combat Medic/EMT in Adel, Iowa…………Nick, QM/CSR at Home Depot in Des Moines, Iowa………I am proud to know you and proud of our brothers in arms serving in Iraq as you have!!! You are the greatest generation!!! You are the definition of “hero”!! Drive on!! Hooyah!!! I won’t brag on myself as it wouldn’t be much. I would rather brag on those who have paid the ultimate price…………. the only sacrifice in life worth giving……….. in service of our great nation to defeat the enemy of our nations’ people. Wish I was there………. and if I can give more…………. someone let me know where I sign up to serve in Iraq and help to bring more of our men home alive!!!
Sincerely,
SGT Holden
25th ID Hillclimber