Member-only story
Why Only Idiots Are Patriots
Clever people understand life is far too complex for simple-minded allegiances
With a tsunami of mindless populism sweeping the world and destroying our fragile civilization, it’s not surprising a lot of people consider themselves to be patriots while supporting policies that in fact serve to destroy the values they think they hold dear.
So why is this? Why do Trump supporters, Brexiteers, Le Pen voters, Orban supporters, and so many other supporters of demagogues around the world believe they are patriots? What, in fact, does patriotism even mean?
According to Wikipedia, Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same sentiment. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings relating to one’s own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to nationalism.
The key thing to note here is the stress on emotion and the absence of any intellectual component. A patriot is someone who loves their country right or wrong, who is intolerant of any criticism of their nation, and who believes their nation is “the best” regardless of the absence of any factual data supporting such a claim.
Even better, because patriots are usually extremely ignorant of the history of their country (though they will have a fantasy version that they imagine is real) they are largely or totally unaware of the many problems and flaws existing in the nation they identify with.
As we’re a primate group species we are hardwired to belong to a group. For most of our evolutionary history this wasn’t problematic: we were born within, lived within, and died within, a single inter-related group. After the agricultural revolution eleven thousand years ago and the resultant development of large urban collectives, things became more complicated. Today, with the existence of vast nation-states, it’s very difficult for people to feel they truly belong to anything. Companies don’t offer much in the way of group security as downsizing and job-hopping mean that most of us don’t stay with any one employer for more than a few years. The nuclear family means that many of us don’t have large stable groups of…
