Patriotism
Remembering Twain
from 
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I was surfing the net really for two things: one was to order flowers online and see that it gets as a surprise to the spouse by Valentine’s and the other was trying to see the US and other world powers’ track record as far as occupying other countries to “ teach democracy”was concerned. Certain articles caught my attention which were so eloquently written that I had to put it in this blog as I saw it.
“A Patriot is merely a rebel at the start.
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been.
In any civic crisis of a great and dangerous sort the common herd is not privately anxious about the rights and wrongs of the matter, it is only anxious to be on the winning side.
In the North, before the war, the man who opposed slavery was despised and ostracised, and insulted. By the "patriots." Then, by and by, the "patriots" went over to his side, and thenceforth his attitude became patriotism.
There are two kinds of patriotism -- monarchical patriotism and republican patriotism. In the one case the government and the king may rightfully furnish you their notions of patriotism; in the other, neither the government nor the entire nation is privileged to dictate to any individual what the form of his patriotism shall be. The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: "The King can do no wrong." We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: "Our country, right or wrong!" We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had:-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.”
- Mark Twain, Feb 1, 1905 Link
Written a hundred years ago today, it’s uncanny how the words still ring true , specially in this day and age of post 9/11 insecurities, knee-jerk pre-emptive responses and government hard-sell on our future social (in)securities, there has to be a reminder on what it is to be.., well, American. And what is being American exactly ?
It used to be whenever I went to attend some international fora, and a plenary session ended with a general note of agreement, there would be this lone voice throwing in this cynical question that left the audience reevaluating why they had agreed to what was said in the first place. I would say to myself before, that guy just had to be American. These days, I’d be very hard put to give the same comment. Canadian, maybe, European, but not American. We’ve just become too comfortable with simple black-and-white answers thrown in our faces that we don’t know what gray is anymore. So disturbingly comfortable that people can’t look at you with a straight face when they start answering the question as to where the country is heading.
It had to take a lone Spec. Wilson to bravely pose the question to his Defense Chief as to why soldiers of the US military had to scrounge around for metal parts to weld to their vehicle before they rode out to the Iraqi front before attention was given to the main in-your- face question, which was really a polite way to ask, “Hey, did you really plan this war?” “Did you really analyze what would happen?”
Gone is that rugged individual who continually questioned even the answers to his previous questions that ended up putting him and his like at the cutting edge of science and technology in one of the most developed societies in this planet. The melancholia I see around doesn’t linger in this rebel figure anymore but seems to be frozen in a post WWII Americana where dreams of guns of glory and cavalry charges seemed to be the fashion. As sure as winners have many fathers, pro-Administration apologists appear from every nook and cranny to carry the art of ass-licking to even greater heights. Even God has been called to this War, and you dare not question it since God doesn’t make mistakes.
No, we can’t disturb that. They’d call us traitors.
“A Patriot is merely a rebel at the start.
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been.
In any civic crisis of a great and dangerous sort the common herd is not privately anxious about the rights and wrongs of the matter, it is only anxious to be on the winning side.
In the North, before the war, the man who opposed slavery was despised and ostracised, and insulted. By the "patriots." Then, by and by, the "patriots" went over to his side, and thenceforth his attitude became patriotism.
There are two kinds of patriotism -- monarchical patriotism and republican patriotism. In the one case the government and the king may rightfully furnish you their notions of patriotism; in the other, neither the government nor the entire nation is privileged to dictate to any individual what the form of his patriotism shall be. The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: "The King can do no wrong." We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: "Our country, right or wrong!" We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had:-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.”
- Mark Twain, Feb 1, 1905 Link
Written a hundred years ago today, it’s uncanny how the words still ring true , specially in this day and age of post 9/11 insecurities, knee-jerk pre-emptive responses and government hard-sell on our future social (in)securities, there has to be a reminder on what it is to be.., well, American. And what is being American exactly ?
It used to be whenever I went to attend some international fora, and a plenary session ended with a general note of agreement, there would be this lone voice throwing in this cynical question that left the audience reevaluating why they had agreed to what was said in the first place. I would say to myself before, that guy just had to be American. These days, I’d be very hard put to give the same comment. Canadian, maybe, European, but not American. We’ve just become too comfortable with simple black-and-white answers thrown in our faces that we don’t know what gray is anymore. So disturbingly comfortable that people can’t look at you with a straight face when they start answering the question as to where the country is heading.
It had to take a lone Spec. Wilson to bravely pose the question to his Defense Chief as to why soldiers of the US military had to scrounge around for metal parts to weld to their vehicle before they rode out to the Iraqi front before attention was given to the main in-your- face question, which was really a polite way to ask, “Hey, did you really plan this war?” “Did you really analyze what would happen?”
Gone is that rugged individual who continually questioned even the answers to his previous questions that ended up putting him and his like at the cutting edge of science and technology in one of the most developed societies in this planet. The melancholia I see around doesn’t linger in this rebel figure anymore but seems to be frozen in a post WWII Americana where dreams of guns of glory and cavalry charges seemed to be the fashion. As sure as winners have many fathers, pro-Administration apologists appear from every nook and cranny to carry the art of ass-licking to even greater heights. Even God has been called to this War, and you dare not question it since God doesn’t make mistakes.
No, we can’t disturb that. They’d call us traitors.
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