Someone gave me a last minute ticket to see John Updike speak this week at the Annual Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was quite informative, if a little boring. I haven’t read any John Updike, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the topic sounded quite interesting: What’s American About American Art. I left without the answer I was looking for, but I did pick up some good information on early American painting.
I arrived just before it began, but the people I was with got there early and saved me a pretty good seat. The “President’s own” Marine Corp band was on stage playing some intro music, and the house was packed. I was a little surprised to see the band, but more surprised to hear a voice ask us all to rise for the Presentation of the Colors and the playing of the National Anthem. Four marines marched the length of the aisle and, at center stage, snapped to attention one by one. The third man slowly lowered the Stars and Stripes to about 45 degrees, and, after half a pause, the band began to play. Along with my companions, a small group of secretaries a good deal older than me, I sang along quietly. Many others in the audience were singing too, raising a low hum beneath the brass. And, as is often the case with me during these little moments of collective expression, I cried a little.
The circumstances had taken me by surprise. You expect this exercise of dutiful patriotism at ball games and the Olympics, or on special occasions. But here, in an auditorium, before a lecture, it felt oddly surreal. Perfectly ordinary because everyone knew the drill- stand up, hats off, (pretend to) sing along. But also perfectly bizarre, because the seamlessness suggested we sang the Anthem every day, before any such public meeting- like how we’d started every day in elementary school by saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
Sometime in 2004 or 2005, I sat, as I often did, listening to C-Span radio in my kitchen. I don’t recall the topic of the hour, but a German woman called in and talked about how wonderful it was to see in America a people so proud of their flag. She described how in Germany, the nationalist exuberance that had led to the Holocaust was followed by a shame of patriotism and the banning of flag-flying and other public displays. She regretted not having been able to freely celebrate her homeland, and admired the open love of country that could be exhibited in the U.S.
Back then, as the pretense and short-sightedness of our Iraqi invasion became more and more obvious, and as some of us began to fear the real possibility of religious war, I said to my radio: Lady, don’t you see!? This is the same blind nationalism that led to catastrophe and mass murder in Europe. Americans too should be ashamed of themselves.
But now, offended by both the increasingly stale über-patriotism of the Right, and the over-ripe self-loathing of the Left, I find myself alienated by both; longing to simply love my country. While I find no identification with the kind of unerring nationalism that depends for its strength on superiority and exclusivity, I also find myself reflexively defending America whether she deserves it or not- seething at the self-righteousness of Europeans, and hating the unnuanced, broadstroked opposition of my peers.
When I mentioned this to a friend recently, he told me a similar reactionary sentiment was believed to be responsible for the resurgence of Neo-Nazism in Germany. As the C-Span caller had described, denied every avenue for national pride save guilt, the dispossessed youth yanked the pendulum back again. This was a response to a legally imposed prohibition on patriotic expression, and it’s hardly likely that I could morph into an American Neo-Nazi, but I admit that it may be an answer to the same struck chord. I want to be proud of my country and I’m frustrated with my options. And rather than freaking out, I’ll strive for a sort of measured Critical Patriotism; wherein the critique grows out of love for country, and the aim is its betterment.
