Fredrick Buechner on Patriotism
I read this Sunday night and thought I'd share it with you. Tell me what you think.
All "isms" run out in the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example.
If patriots are people who stand by their country right or wrong, Germans who stood by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be adequate proof that we've had enough of them.
If patriots are people who believe not only that anything they consider unpatriotic is wrong but that anything they consider wrong is unpatriotic, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his backers should be enough to make us avoid them like the plague.
If patriots are people who believe things like "Better Dead Than Red," they should be shown filmsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively and then be taken off to the funny farm.
The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enought to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost, but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map one and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty.
There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether.
All "isms" run out in the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example.
If patriots are people who stand by their country right or wrong, Germans who stood by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be adequate proof that we've had enough of them.
If patriots are people who believe not only that anything they consider unpatriotic is wrong but that anything they consider wrong is unpatriotic, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his backers should be enough to make us avoid them like the plague.
If patriots are people who believe things like "Better Dead Than Red," they should be shown filmsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively and then be taken off to the funny farm.
The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enought to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost, but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map one and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty.
There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether.
Labels: Quotes
posted by mark at
6:00 AM
5 Comments:
To me, this appears to be a piece that is a lot of "heart" without being smart. Basically he is advocating us all to be sheeple.
"All "isms" run out in the end, and good riddance to most of them."
The problem with this statement is that if we did not have people who stuck to things even in the face of contrary popular opinion or popular logic, then we would all simply be followers of the crowd.
Imagine, for instance, if moms stopped thinking their sons were innocent of crimes. Imagine the ones who were actually innocent suddenly lost support of their families, and lost the only people who still believed in them. We _need_ people who believe in things past their time, because they are precisely the people who will save us in the end. What is also needed is for the rest of us to be wise in listening to them.
"the late Senator Joseph McCarthy"
The reference to McCarthy underlines this point. The fact is that the declassified Venona project substantiated pretty much everything McCarthy was saying. Most of the paranoia around McCarthy was manufactured by a really effective publicity campaign.
"If patriots are people who believe things like "Better Dead Than Red," they should be shown filmsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively and then be taken off to the funny farm."
This seems anti-Christian - as we are ones who would rather be dead than deny Christianity. "Red" was specifically anti-Christian.
"True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race."
That's the point of being champions of Democracy. It's silly to be human if you remove the dignity.
"It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost, but the planet Earth as Home."
Is there anyone attacking "planet Earth as Home"?
"If in the interests of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map one and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty."
This seems to be someone who is overly influenced by popular media. Why assume that relinquishing national sovereignty will keep us from blowing ourselves off the map? How is us relinquishing national sovereignty any better than the US being the major police power in the world? If we are not sovereign and democratic, then we are under tyranny.
It's sad that this is serious, because it reads like a propaganda piece for appeasing tyrants. It appeals to feelings not facts, uses demagoguery to make its main points, and assumes things that we might wish to be true despite there being no reason to believe them to be.
Sorry to be harsh, but I think this kind of thinking (or replacing thinking with the biases of popular media) is more dangerous than the alternatives the author worries about.
man, jonathan this makes me miss sitting down with you and talking! We need to get together soon.
i appreciate your well articulated thoughts. I don't really agree with you on most of them, but i love that you posted them here! Thank you bro.
We do need to get together. I've been busy with conferences and projects, but we should make some time to do coffee. I also might try to make another Cohort meeting while I'm on summer break and have a little extra time.
Hmmmm---I'll note, with some amusement, that had I said the exact same thing about Joseph McCarthy, which I would have, it would probably not have gotten quite the same reception.
But, hey--don't worry. In a world that is growing increasingly balkanized, where people are fragmenting instead of uniting, and loudly proclaiming their right to do so, you go right ahead and champion the giving up of sovereignty and such pitiful few rights as we currently retain. You may end up feeling like the guy diving into the mosh pit just as the crowd parts, but what the heck, why not...
not sure how much this applies, but i think it is thought provoking for this type of conversation...this quote from stanley hauerwas says a lot for me..."we do not argue that the bomb is the worst thing humanity can do to itself. we have already done the worst thing we could do when we hung God's Son on a cross."
i wish i could worry less about the future of our country and more about the life Christ has challenged me to live.
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