Patriotism keeps us in the game. It’s an instrument of control that’s cultivated in us as children through emotional rituals designed to make us identify our nation with our family and with some higher power. These rituals create a bond of feeling linking God the Father, the Founding Fathers, and our own fathers into a patriarchal hierarchy that rewards us if we’re obedient and punishes us if we’re rebellious. It’s a tool for keeping us in our place.
Patriotism exploits the love we have for our parents by projecting it onto the nation. We love our country, so we react to criticism of it as an attack on our family. This criticism hurts our feelings on a deep personal level, so we reject it. It’s too threatening to us. The emotionality of patriotism keeps us from thinking about what the USA is actually doing in the world: dominating other countries through economic, political, and military aggression.
Patriotism gives us the illusion that we’re part of the system rather than victims of it. It helps us feel good about ourselves, a defense against the low self-esteem that this hyper-competitive society instills in us. Instead of personal pride, we are offered national pride, and we cling to that because it’s all we’ve got. That’s one reason poor whites are often so aggressively patriotic. They’re desperate to feel like winners. The poor minorities know better.
Thursday 5 July 2012
Patriot’s Game ☀
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My parents were disengaged, responded only to emergencies, and gave a shit only when they thought that my conduct...
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