AMID the cacophony of protest against current U.S. foreign policy, it may be hard to believe that Nathan Hale ever cried: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." For many Americans, who through the years thought that a rather wonderful thing to say, it is even harder to believe that today so many young men chant a new anthem: "Hell, no, we won't go!" Indeed, the phenomenon of bitter antiwar protest reflects profound changes in U.S. attitudes toward patriotism—an emotion once proudly shouted from the rooftops but now seldom even discussed. Is patriotism dead? Outdated? Should it still enter the discussion of grave national issues?
Patriotism is just as important as ever. The problem is in defining it—and few definitions are so elusive. It consists of three distinct but interrelated emotions—love of country, pride in it, and desire to serve its best interests. The love is easily traced to man's natural affection for his particular home, language and customs. The word patriotism comes from pater, Greek for father, and means love for a fatherland. From the love flows pride: the firm belief that one's country is good and perhaps superior to all others—a pride not only in the country's objective worth but because that worth enhances one's own.
Adlai Stevenson's definition was expectedly eloquent. "When an American says that he loves his country," he declared, "he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect." Eric Hoffer, the philosopher-longshoreman has a more prosaic but very pragmatic description: "The day-to-day competence of the workingman." He adds: "If I said I was loading ships for Mother America, even during a war, I would be laughed off the docks. In Russia, they can't build an outhouse without having a parade and long speeches. This is the strength of America."
Few people seem to be willing to proclaim their patriotism these days, and Fourth of July oratory has gone out of fashion. But John F. Kennedy's inaugural address was squarely in the old spine-tingling tradition. "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." And more: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." There was an affirmation in the best spirit of patriotic oratory, and it forced the blood up into the temples of people who never really expected to feel that way.
Right & Wrong