In a science-fictiony, medieval nostalgic kind of way, I can understand the desire for the United States to break up into more human sized pieces. And maybe in a couple of hundred years it will. But in our lifetime, this is just a fantasy. The best we can probably hope for is a better regulated economic sphere, but this will only increase the role of the federal government, not decrease it. We are heading more and more towards the European social=democrat model, just more free-wheeling in our own American way.

Also, it’s important to recognize that American patriotism is more a kind of quasi-religion, in that it is patriotism not merely to a people, but to an idea, an ideal, of how all people should be, of how everyone could be, and maybe has to be. As I’ve said, it’s more similar to Christianity in that respect than ordinary “pagan” local patriotism. That doesn’t mean it can’t hold together. As you might notice, Christianity has held together quite will for a very long time, despite the fact that it is not a local, regional religion, but is devoted to a central universal symbol and source. Christianity is federalism as religion.

A radical critique does not always require radical measures. Nor does a vision of a more decentralized political order require a return to the past. It just requires creative thinking, and to some degree hammering out the compromise necessary to achieve both autonomy and, because we are a liberal society, equality. Autonomy will often result in higher equality, though there are certainly times when this is not the case – the corrupt local government; the local monopoly; the prejudiced local laws. So it becomes a matter of balance, I think, which is really not so radical at all.

Once upon a time, it was common for kings to die in battle. The U.S. elite doesn’t even risk their pensions when they commit others’
lives and resources to battle.

Reminds me of the old saw that Britain acquired its empire in a fit of absence of mind.

As a function of having a strong culture, economy and military, when various problems occur people ask and expect the US to intervene because other nations are not willing or able to act outside of their own parochial interest.

This IMO is the real cause of all the complaints wrt American “hegemony” etc., and this would not be solved by some sort of secession/breakup.

Speaking for myself (not Kennan), because a lot of the arguments made by the Federalist 200+ years ago make sense for a 13 state confederation, but make much less sense for a 50 state confederation?

Most indivual states would not be viable* as independant nations. But one could certainly see 10-12 multi-state conglomerations as being viable.

*viable in the sense of thriving as independant polities.

Though I suppose a cynic could say that, even divorced from our current government, and even the nation state, our current patris – land, culkture, people – is so far divorced from what it once was that even there Daniel’s loyalty is to a “country” that no longer exists.

I love the rocks, rills, founding fathers, snake-oil salesmen, ad-men, banjo-pickers, poets, hobos, winos and the rest–the Seventeenth Amendment, say, not so much. And none of them uncritically.

Pour me a beer.

Agreed. This “patriotism” that Larison describes here is more like regionalism or localism or whathaveyou; if I can call a love of ones immediate physical and cultural surroundings “localism.” I’m not saying that this a bad thing, but I do agree that the terminology here is getting confused. That Kennan belived in the insustainability of the US as a large, arguably multi-national state, and that the desirable response was Balkanization, is not “patriotism,” but rather a response to the question of how to best manage the situation. People that called for the dissolution of the USSR into its constituent republics were probably not patriots, but they definately had the(ir) countr(y’s|ies) best interests in mind.

While I can envision a “nationalism” which celebrates ideals, geography, culture and demographics sans government, such a nationalism would be unpleasant to say the least.

Take the example of 20th-century Russia, which went through three different styles of government. A conservative Tsarist, an early democratic reformer, a communist revolutionary, a White guerrilla, a Great Patriotic War soldier turned gulag guard, a Great Patriotic War soldier turned gulag prisoner, a hardline communist, a demoncratic reformer, a Yeltsin supporting soldier who shells the Parliamentary building, the members of that Parliament, or the family that simply tried to survive all those things – all of these people may have been motivated by a love of Russia. And maybe they killed each other over it.

I suspect it has something to do with the desire to make “patriotic” into a significant virtue. But “patriotism” as a loyalty to ideals or geography or culture or demographics, without the necessity of government, seems odd.