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For centuries, countless thinkers have denounced patriotic pride for one of its unhappiest effects: the irrational hatred that one people aims at a "lesser" people. Arnold Toynbee attributes the death of Greco-Roman civilization to patriotic wars between city states—and failure to establish international law. Early Christians rejected patriotism on the ground that man's obligations are to God, and after that to all of humanity. A Jesuit general once called patriotism "the most certain death of Christian love." There is no question that chauvinism—hyperpatriotism—can be induced in any country, including a democracy, where truth may be a poor competitor in the marketplace of ideas. A tragic example is Germany, where Nazi excesses in the name of the fatherland left such scars that today patriotism is for Germans an embarrassing idea.
At its root, patriotism bore no such scar. In 1578, during the Dutch-Flemish revolt against Spanish rule, the word patriot was. first used to mean one who represents people and country against the king. By the 18th century, patriotism denoted love of a free country, devotion to human rights as well as nationalism. To Stephen Decatur's famous toast "Our country may she always be right; but our country right or wrong" Carl Schurz later replied: "When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right." Who decides what is right and what is wrong? The Schurz position suggests that the only valid answer to that question is the free individual conscience—indeed, that true love of country involves criticism as well as praise, for mere acquiescence may be mindless indifference.
The Essence of Americanism
Chaotic—or even anarchic—as that answer may seem, it is the base of U.S. patriotism. At the end of the 18th century, nothing was more quixotic than trying to nationalize 13 hostile colonies, assorted religious sects, and 2,500,000 individualists. The colonists were so unimpressed by the Revolution that one-third of them sided with Britain. At Valley Forge, George Washington wrote that patriotic idealism could not inspire his ragged, ill-trained army, that it must be toughened by "a prospect of interest or some reward." He meant cash. Only well after victory did the shaky American nation burst forth with an optimistic self-image based on the idea that the humane spirit of 18th century enlightenment could be fully realized for the first time anywhere. General Washington called himself "a citizen of the great republic of humanity at large," and countless divines proclaimed Americans to be God's chosen people. "We are acting for all mankind," said Thomas Jefferson. Beneficent fate "imposed on us the duty of proving what is the degree of self-government in which a society may venture to leave its individual members."