Blind Faith
I don’t have much time but it is the Fourth of July and one of the worst violators of my ban on blind faith. Blind patriotism is just a version of faith. It is the blind belief that your country is somehow superhuman. Now I’m not saying we should discount the advantages of living in this country, merely suggesting that to ignore the fact that every organization is made up of people is a mistake.
People are flawed, and they do things for flawed reasons and with flawed executions. Sometimes, even often things turn out well, but that is no reason to elevate flawed people to superhuman status. To ignore the flaws is to ignore the entire history of an organization. To ignore the greed of the industrialist who eventually brought us a better standard of living is to lie and re-write history. To ignore the philandering of the founding fathers and their many other flaws is to lie about what ordinary men can accomplish when the need arises, and instead creates false myths of unattainability.
That hurts us more than knowing that out institution was based on thoughts of flawed people.
Is patriotism necessarily blind? Granted, as schoolkids we're all taught/forced to pledge allegiance to the flag and honor all our godlike founding fathers. But does that mean that as a contemplative adult I can't make the decision to like my country for what IMO are solid reasons?
Maybe this all comes down to differing ideas on what patriotism is. And I would never argue with anyone who claimed that most patriotism is blind and responsible for all sorts of attrocities around the world throughout the ages.
Ideas like free speech and freedom of religion are really critical to my living my life the way I want to. No, even middle class whitebread Jason doesn't really have total freedom of speech or freedom from religious prejudices - but we have a reasonable approximation of them. And I think it's appropriate to take a day to reflect on these things and the people and events that brought us to this state.
Yes, most of our patriots were typical politicians of their time with all the associated hidden motives and human weaknesses. But it's not the people themselves that I celebrate, it's the ideas and events that they collectively brought to pass.
(http://livejournal.com/users/jstevens)
The theoretical idea of patriotism isn't needfully blind, but its usual practice is. I agree that I haven't found anywhere better to go at this point, which can be construed as a form of free market patriotism. But I think that it is a long way from that to the deification of the founding fathers.
During the 4th of July the manifestation of patriotism gets very blind. There are stories on the news and radio about the great and powerful founding fathers. This is blind patriotism.
Reasoned patriotism would be to celebrate the entirety of the founding fathers. With all their flaws weaknesses and quirks. Instead we re-write history to make them paragons. This puts what they did out of the reach of normal people. It leads to a disinterested populace who believes change is accomplished by these deified paragons instead of by normal people working hard towards a better world.
Unreasoned patriotism becomes a mechanism of control of the populaces instead of a reasoned patriotism's control over the governmental structures by its people.
(http://livejournal.com/users/nephlm)