Comments on: Pro Patria Mori

By: Eunomia » Countries, Nation-States And Regimes

Eunomia » Countries, Nation-States And Regimes — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:03:30 +0000

[...] Ross makes an important point in his post on the Cato patriotism debate that I have joined without an invitation: The only complicating factor occurs in a case like the United States, where the character of the regime and the character of the people are bound together so tightly that it’s hard to imagine one without the other. The government-country distinction is easier to make in countries where regimes change willy-nilly, and while obviously our regime isn’t identical to the one founded in 1789, our democratic temper – both institutional and cultural – has endured through the transition from a decentralized republic to a mass democracy with a sizable administrative state. So whereas France would still be France if the current Republic were dissolved and a monarchy or a dictatorship took its place, there’s a sense in which imagining an America governed by an emperor or a military junta is a little like imagining a France whose inhabitants no longer speak French. [...]

By: procco

procco — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:45:34 +0000

Forgive me, I am not familiar with the distinctions you are making between nationalism and patriotism and between state and country. Is “state” in this case simply those in power at any given time? Could you (or another poster) flesh these out a bit for me, or point me to materials that could fill in the blanks?

By: TGGP

TGGP — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:35:12 +0000

LMaggitti, that reminds me of people who respond when someone points out what a mess the invasion of Iraq has become "Well, what are you going to do about it?". That nothing can be done is part of the mess! Some people have suggestions, but I certainly don't see it happening any time soon. So what do I choose to do? Get on with my life and occasionally vent on the internet.

By: LMaggitti

LMaggitti — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:43:18 +0000

A lot to chew on here. I agree with most of it, and I am still mulling over where I disagree, but I do want to try to tease out one thread of your argument.

Your dim view of mass democracy is one that I share to some extent. But (temptation here to use the lame, possibly apocryphal Churchill quote – you know the one I mean) as always, I come up upon the fact that the alternatives on offer don’t seem any better. Moreover, I think we run into a “put the genie back in the bottle” kind of problem. That is, even if we thought that, say a return to some sort of constitutional monarchy with a restricted franchise were a good thing (I don’t, but for the sake of argument), given the path that history has taken, i don’t think we could get there. Which is, I suppose, a way of saying that the REAL alternatives to mass democracy aren’t (arguably) relatively benevolent forms of government like British constitutional monarchy post Glorious Revolution, but in fact the real alternatives are authoritarian and totalitarian tyranny. (Note that in a larger sense that I think a similar criticism of your whole pre-enlightenment sensibility can be made – that is, whatever the substantive merits of such a position, the enlightenment, for good or ill, is an irreversible part of contingent history.)

So where does that leave us? Contra the silly conventional wisdom (”democracies don’t go to war with democracies”), I agree with you that mass democracy is part of the problem, if we define the problem as an imperial foreign policy. But given the lack of viable alternatives to mass democracy, the question becomes, how to we fight for a sane foriegn policy in a mass democracy? Sadly I have no compelling answer, though I agree with you that Katebâ€™s essay isn’t helpful in that regard.

(I might say parenthetically that I probably agree with Kateb in the abstract that “patriotism” is, on the whole, a negative phenomenon. But I tend to think that railing against patriotism is a little like railing against the sun coming up in the morning.)