Patriotism

Philosophical and Political Perspectives

Igor Primoratz, Aleksandar Pavkovic

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754671220
• eBook ISBN: 9781317083160
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Economic and cultural globalization and the worldwide threat of terrorism have contributed to the resurgence of patriotic loyalty in many parts of the world and made the issues it raises highly topical. This collection of new essays by philosophers and political theorists engages with a wide range of conceptual, moral and political questions raised by the current revival of patriotism. It displays both similarities and differences between patriotism and nationalism, and considers the proposal of Habermas and others to disconnect the two. Ideal as a supplementary reader for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in politics/political science especially in political theory, contemporary political ideologies and nationalism and in philosophy for courses on applied ethics and political philosophy.

PART III
FURTHER ISSUES

Chapter 10
Patriotism: Problems at Home

Cynthia Townley

Introduction

Patriotism is quite often compared to affiliations such as family preferences and other group-based loyalties, such as race loyalty. But such comparisons are neither as straightforward nor as benign as might first appear. They are not straightforward because, for one thing, as Elaine Scarry has argued, comparisons of individual or group experience depend (tacitly or explicitly) on capacities for imagination, which are extremely difficult and complex. ‘The problem with discussions of ‘the other’ is that they characteristically emphasize generous imaginings, and thus allow the fate of another person to be contingent on the generosity and wisdom of the imaginer.’1 Scarry is cautious about relying on this generosity and wisdom, and makes this point in her defence of constitutional design responses to problems of group justice, rather than ‘spontaneous actions of individuals’ (p. 99). Her insight suggests a more general point about how hard it is to think about groups, which is important because thinking about group loyalty and patriotism entails thinking about differences within and differentiations between groups.

Imagining other people is intrinsically difficult, but the difficulties of comparing groups are compounded because these can cut close to issues of identity and unearned privilege or undeserved disadvantage. It can be hard to recognize the gaps or limits of one’s imagination and the generosity or wisdom of its application. Iris Young has argued for the need to listen to others rather than projecting an understanding or presumed symmetrical perspective in order to promote moral understanding.2 ‘It is neither possible nor morally desirable for persons engaged in moral interaction to adopt one another’s standpoint.’3 Doing so can result in the replacement of the other’s actual perspective with an imagined or projected one, or assimilating others to oneself in a way that hides or underplays difference. Comparisons can distract from certain features of groups or contexts by replacing the focus of attention. Comparisons of sexism and racism illustrate this effect: ‘When a speaker compared sexism and racism, the significance of race was marginalized and obscured, and the different role that race plays in the lives of people of color and of whites was overlooked.’4

Notoriously within feminist theory, thinking about difference has been challenging – feminists have both presented and been confronted by challenges when attempting to think about groups.5 An instance of the former is feminist discussion of families (or assumptions about families);6 an instance of the latter is how the presumed universality of the category ‘woman’ has been challenged.7 The complicated character of categories of family, race and gender are not always taken up in discussions of patriotism and citizenship,8 where comparisons may tacitly present a fictitious unity within groups such as women, racial groups and even families.9 These considerations complicate comparisons between national or country-based groups (or group affiliation and loyalty) and other social groups.

In this chapter, I explore some of the troublesome aspects of comparisons between groups and how they arise in discussions of patriotism that use analogy and a ‘concentric circles’ model for expanding or comparing moral concern. (By ‘concentric circles’ model I mean to include versions of the view expressed by Benjamin Barber that ‘our attachments start parochially and only then grow outward.’10) I will argue that race-based loyalty is a problematic analogue for patriotic loyalty whether it is viewed positively or negatively. Comparing racism and patriotism leads Paul Gomberg11 to find patriotism morally suspect, and leads Stephen Nathanson12 to identify a morally acceptable form of race loyalty analogous to moderate patriotism. Starting with their discussion, I will show, not that there is a right or wrong lesson to be drawn from the comparison, but that relying on such a comparison is fraught. Second, I will look at concentric circles and use some discussions of intersections of citizenship and family to show that here, too, comparisons of groups can leave out important differences. Both analogies and concentric circles tend to leave out intersections between groups and to presume uniformity within groups.

The patriotism-racism analogy

Patriotism-racism comparisons

Analogies are used to illuminate aspects of the things or concepts compared.13 Often, one thing is more familiar or displays a feature more clearly, and can be used to show up a similar aspect in the other. Analogies can also work reciprocally: through the comparison, both sides come to be understood in new, perhaps deeper ways. This pattern is evident in Paul Gomberg and Stephen Nathanson’s exchange about whether patriotism is impermissible because it is like racism. The apparent likeness between patriotism and racism is based on a similar chauvinistic character: patriotism and racism are alike in that a (racial, ethnic or national) group takes that identity to licence preferential treatment for members of that group. Gomberg and Nathanson accept that patriotism and racism are alike in significant ways, then ask what lesson should be learned from the analogy. They differ about whether moderate patriotism (and moderate racial loyalty) can be a permissible form of preferential treatment. Throughout the literature of patriotism, analogies and comparisons are used to show the permissibility or impermissibility of patriotic loyalty in some form or other.

It is prima facie plausible that some kinds of partiality or preferential treatment, such as favouring members of one’s own family (especially one’s children), are permissible. There are good reasons to think such partialities are compatible with universal morality. Marcia Baron states: ‘My justification [it’s my daughter] would indicate that the partiality involved (doing something for my child because she’s my child; or putting my child before other children) is fine for anyone: the action taken is something that I think is okay for anyone to take.’14 John Cottingham makes a similar point about family preference: ‘the partialist’s principle of action is, of course, universalizable in the sense that he may be perfectly prepared to prescribe that any parent in a similar situation ought to favour his own child.’15 Common sense, utilitarian or universalist claims can all be invoked to support some degree of such familiar preference.

It is also safe to accept that some preferential treatments are not morally justified. Legitimate preferences might be taken to excess or used in an improper context (nepotism) or preferences might be intrinsically dubious, such as awarding better marks to red-haired students. Some instances or classes of partiality are justified, and/or compatible with universal morality, while others are not justified, while the status of other forms, such as patriotism, or some form of patriotic loyalty, is less clear – hence the uses of analogy or comparison. Is patriotism like a (prima facie) permissible family preference or special responsibility, or like a (prima facie) suspect or arbitrary preference such as racism?

Gomberg and Nathanson seem to agree that comparing patriotism and racism is legitimate; they disagree about what the comparison shows. Nathanson distinguishes in both cases an acceptable moderate form and an extreme unacceptable form: he contrasts moderate racial loyalty which may be permissible with racism which is not. ‘Racism necessarily involves a belief in the superiority and inferiority of various groups’, but a moderate racial loyalty can be ‘just a sense of positive connection with one’s own group’ without a ‘negative attitude toward members of other races’ (115). I return to this contrast below.

Gomberg suggests that a utilitarian consideration of the effects of patriotism and racism shows that racist preferences are harmful in that they entrench patterns of privilege and disadvantage. Likewise he suspects that patriotism will not produce the best results for all concerned. A principle-based argument would seek to show that patriotism enables the expression of concern for others by distributing moral labour.16 Gomberg is pessimistic about the success of the non-utilitarian arguments, seeing patriotism like racism as an obstacle to the practice of universal moral ideals.

Nathanson responds that there are reasons to think that patriotism in a moderate form is a morally permissible partiality, as is a moderate racial loyalty. What is unacceptable about racism is that it involves ‘not just a positive attitude toward one’s own race but a negative attitude toward other races’.17 He suggests that, contrary to the assumption that all racial preference is inherently wrong, there might be morally acceptable forms of racial loyalty – minimally these forms would respect others’ rights rather than ignore, infringe or violate those rights. Thus he distinguishes racism from moderate racial loyalty, the latter exemplified by Martin Luther King’s championing of the rights of American blacks.

A closer look at racial identification and loyalty

I will argue that when we look more closely at race, it is less clear that an informative comparison can be made between racial and patriotic loyalties.

Nathanson argues that King was motivated in part by ‘special affection for, concern for, and identification with black people’18 as well as by universal moral ideals (like a concern for justice), and an attribution of complex motives seems right. According to Nathanson, absent an attitude of superiority or desire to dominate others, such a special affection is a morally permissible motivation in both the cases of race-based or country-based loyalty.

Nathanson goes on to say that ‘if racial identification had nothing to do with his activities, then prior to his engaging in acts to improve the status of blacks, King would have had to judge which of the various groups in the world was most oppressed and which he was in the best position to support’ (116). In other words, King would have had to rely on a totally impartial assessment.

While Nathanson rightly acknowledges that King’s motivation would have been complex, and likely included identification, I think there is more to say about how such motivation might arise. The move from either a ‘one’s own group’ identification or a purely impartial judgement of which group in the world was most oppressed and which one is best placed to help does not exhaust the possible motivations. To see this, consider how one might become an active anti-racist or civil rights campaigner.

One may be attuned to oppression and injustice in part because one is a member of this or that subordinated group, and hence exposed to oppressive practices by suffering from them directly, by hearing stories about such injustices and by noting the effects on those around one who suffer group-based oppression and injustice. Membership of the group might sensitize me to injustices based on that group membership: such injustices are salient to me precisely because these are injustices that do or might affect me.19

But in very similar ways, a person might develop similar concerns about oppressive practices without being directly vulnerable to the specific form of oppression. Suppose I am related by marriage or family membership, or aligned by friendship, or connected by profession to a group vulnerable to racism.20 I might have an interest in opposing oppression to which I am not individually and personally vulnerable, and I might develop a sensitivity to and understanding of these oppressive matters through indirect connections to the group, and not through membership in it. I might not identify with a racial group, and not be a member of it, but develop a commitment to oppose the injustices to which members of that group are vulnerable.

Is opposition to injustice explained by the recognition of injustice through salience and special attunement, or through group membership and loyalty which is just one, and even if the most important, not the only, source of that special attunement?21 I think it is not identification per se that does the work; rather, vulnerability to oppression and proximity to and trusting relations with vulnerable others are most important. Racism, like sexism, and like opposition to racism or sexism, is not just about a loyalty preference toward one’s own group. One may be a sexist woman or a feminist man, one might accept dogmas of white supremacism by adaptive preferences, while not being a beneficiary of white privilege.22

Hence, I think King’s is one version of a motivated concern that might be directly or indirectly derived, but need not be based on personal vulnerability to the form of oppression in question, and hence not on group membership and identification. Rather, it might be that an individual’s life experience fits her to take on a particular cause, for example, its salience within her family, neighbourhood or community, and racial group membership is one of various ways this can occur. Having a particularly rich understanding of the matters in question, being well placed to hear and appreciate the views of others are reasons that might, but don’t have to, involve membership of a group.23 Proximity, trust and access are likewise important features.

This does not show that Nathanson fails to defend a moderate and morally acceptable patriotism. The discussion exposes an account of group identification and its relationship to resistance to oppression that is perhaps a bit too quick. There is a further problem with the racism analogy and defence of moderate racial loyalty that it enables: it is difficult to articulate a permissible basis for moderate racial loyalty when the asymmetry of race relations is made clear.

Problems with moderate racia...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• I THE MORAL CREDENTIALS OF PATRIOTISM
• II PATRIOTISM, NATIONALISM, AND HISTORY
• III FURTHER ISSUES
• Bibliography
• Index