I wonder if religious conservatives aren't actually somewhat admirable for their embrace of propositional nationalism. They intuit that love of country is a good (and, in principle, it is). They also intuit that their country is a total moral wreck, their countrymen stupid, greedy degenerates, and their leaders vile schemers, liars, adulterers, and highway robbers. If they treated America as what it is -- a particular nation of a particular people governed by a particular authority -- they would have no choice but to condemn it violently for its many egregious faults, not the least of which is the ongoing slaughter of its children, a death toll three times that of the entire Holocaust (Jews and gentiles alike; over eight times that of Jews alone).
Saying "America is freedom" (or something) conveniently gives religious conservatives the leeway to love their nation while simultaneously overlooking all that makes it unloveable. After all, whatever is bad is bad because it isn't American but some kind of intrusive, alien force.
That's usually as far as this line of thought goes. If this is true, then these people are intentionally affecting ignorance of evil -- an evil act in and of itself. He who excuses mass murder so he can celebrate "freedom" with an easy conscience is not admirable: he's simply a bastard.
Thoughtless patriotism is a symptom of the us vs them dichotomy pushed by the media. If the left hates America then I must love America unconditionally. This sentiment then undergirds the American exceptionalism meme that is exploited by elites of the right and the left.
Posted by: Heathcliff | January 05, 2012 at 08:42 AM
I had a similar thought last night at church. It seems to be very common that Christians blame themselves (meaning Christians in general) for the moral decline of America, urging themselves to ever-greater efforts at moral reform and evangelical renewal.
My heart broke hearing everyone's earnestness, because I know the truth of the matter: Christians never stopped trying to keep America pure, rather, the system was taken out of their control via un-democratic means, mainly judicial fiat.
Realizing that American declined because it is no longer a democracy, and no amount of grassroots moral renewal will help change things, well, that is just depressing and demotivating. I did not share my analysis with the group.
Posted by: Justin | January 05, 2012 at 09:16 AM
Try reading St Augustine's City of God and how he considered the Roman Empire, warts and glory together as necessarily a confluence of both vice and virtue and get back to me about America being either/or.
No individual is either/or (totally good, totally bad), so how could any family or community or nation be purely good or purely bad? It's always a mixed bag.
The USA in 1862 was 1/3rd slave states and 2/3 'free states' but neither side was totally innocent. But to claim that Northern malice and Southern arrogance meant that the entire sheebang had no value for Catholics is ridiculous. Ditto today with abortion, porn, rampant secular hedons on the one side and struggling evangelicals and Catholics on the other.
Just as my ancestors were not personally morally culpable for slavery - but had a hand in its end - so too I'm not morally culpable for abortion, but am trying to end it. Such is life. You don't throw the baby out with the very real ugly bath water.
You don't nuke the town who refused entry to Jesus, you just bide your time and then send missionaries to them after Pentecost.
Think of the barbarian hordes who swept away the late Roman civilization: pagans all...but within 100-200 years many of them had become Catholics. The cultural flux is not a one way street. We're not doomed to eternal slides into Sodom....even as it looks like secular hedonism is on the rise... it's mostly smoke and mirrors. Just as in the 1980s' when it looked like the USSR was destined to rule the world only to implode overnight.
Keep the faith, do not be afraid. Do we not preach the power of God and the presence of God? Do we not believe God worked miracles in our own lives? If so, why despair that He can work miracles in the lives of our erstwhile ideological or cultural 'enemies'? If Bernard Nathanson, the notorious abortionist could convert and die a Catholic and Norma McCorvey of Roe vs. Wade could too... why must we despair of a new spring time of Evangelization in 2013 or 2014?
Posted by: Joe | January 05, 2012 at 09:52 AM
I agree that there is something bogus about propositional nationalism - I heard similar things about Scottish nationalism, which is in reality a mixture of cultural pride, anti-Englishness and socialism.
The problem for nationalism is who is in, and who is out - because often the spontaneous nationalism is of a smaller unit than the one that the leaders want to control.
In Scotland, the nationalists have to fuse the historically hostile Highlands and Lowlands, and the Protestants and Catholics - and are driven to some rather convoluted arguments in the attempt.
The fuel for nationalism is often the self interest of the upper middle class - mid-level officials, teachers, writers, journalists - who see more power from being the leaders of a smaller unit than middling people in a bigger unit. This seems to be the common feature of almost all successful nationalistic 'revolutions' - they kick-out the ruling elite - it applies in Ireland, in Germany, and in the ex British Empire colonies.
In the US, the national (Federal) level of government is now solidly Leftist (suicidal etc) - and to me it looks as if the only way to reverse this trend would be for one or more States to break away from the unit.
I don't see this happening except on the other side of 'collapse' - when the federal level of organization has broken down, which of course it will.
But national US patriotism is one of those apparently conservative forces that actually serves the Leftist agenda.
Posted by: bgc | January 05, 2012 at 11:10 PM
I believe CS Lewis made a valid distinction between patriotism and nationalism.... patriotism is about love of one's country - eyes open to its defects and because of them the patriot works to make his country better 'ad intra'...whereas nationalism is about thumping one's chest 'ad extra' and barking about some sort of innate superiority of one's tribe vs. another tribe (in which case they hide their dirty laundry and insist all is well right to the edge of collapse.)
Posted by: Joe | January 06, 2012 at 08:33 AM