I: Talking It Over
Nationalism and Patriotism differ in many points, but the principle divergence is in the fact that, as we attempted to demonstrate in the previous two posts, Patriotism is not an ideology.
It maybe more precise to speak of Patriotness or Patriocy, even if we chose to use the "ism" in the same way as in Romanticism or Gigantism - a condition, a state of existence, a unique capacity for a great and faithful love.
Nationalism is very clearly an ideology, which can be animated by Patriotism or by other sentiments - noble as well as lowly. In the same sense, Nationalism is only one of the many ideologies a Patriot may adapt in order to bring about the good of his country.
Like any ideology, Nationalism can be paired with any other ideology that is not diametrically opposed to it.
Patriotism, on the other hand, is opposed not to any ideology but to an ACT, namely, Treason. This crime, which is born either out of malice or indifference towards One's particular national community, is not bound by an idea (albeit it may build around itself an ideological scaffolding to support itself).
The reason for this difference is that as a sentiment, Patriotism cannot be denied if the Patriot adopts disastrous ideas or plans out of simplicity or error. As long as the error is made in good faith and pure heart, the man who committed it is a fool, not a traitor.
Therefore, Patriots, more than Nationalists, must be in a constant conversation with each other not about what is going on inside of their heads but rather about the actual good of the country, since their aim is the GENERAL good of the Country rather then any PARTICULAR good they wish it to adopt.
Another happy feature of Patriotic discourse is that it is by necessity amicable. While Nationalists, like all ideologues, must chose their words carefully least their comrades find them guilty of heresy, the Patriots can retain their belief in each other's bona fide et amor patriae while disagreeing vehemently about the way in which it is to be implemented. The Patriot's faith is attested by deeds, not pronouncements of doctrine.
II: THE PRACTICALITY OF PATRIOTISM
It is therefore no surprise that a land in which Patriotism, rather than fidelity to an abstract idea, is hailed as the main virtue of the Citizen, would be a land which admires practicality over sophistication.
The most hackneyed theme of American Politics is the politician (usually a candidate to high executive office) putting himself in front of the public in the simple circumstance of manual labor. This is not, as in other countries or in the way intellectuals foreign and domestic imagine it to be, an appeal to the lowest common denominator in society or an attempt to portray the candidate as "an average Joe". Candidates who frame themselves this way lose. The American people do not want a common man leading them and they deem a billionaire pretending to be a construction worker as stupider and ruder than what is common.
Instead, what candidates since William H. Harrison had tried to convey was their PRACTICALITY. That the candidate is a person quick on his feet, capable of finding and implementing expedient and sensible solutions to problems and that has the ability to get through difficulties without losing his cool and grace.
III: THE MANLINESS OF PATRIOTISM
Manliness is an often misunderstood virtue. Indeed it is a direct translation of the Latin Virtus (from Vir, "Man").
Of course, there is some distance between the Latin concept and the Anglo-Saxon one (as well as between the two and the modern English word "Virtue"), but at the end they are similar in that they prescribe a very different conduct and state of mind than the bravado and boastful forcefulness often associated with the word Machismo.
The Ancient Romans identified four components of Virtus: Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance and Justice, with Piety was often included, especially amongst those influenced by Platonic philosophy. A man who had consistently conducted himself with Virtus was said to have acquired Dignitas for himself and his posterity, especially if One had exercised it in his conduct of public affairs. This last quality was ephemeral, but it allowed someone to enjoy prestige, authority and reputation. The dignified man had no need to declare his Virtus , since it was common knowledge. He did not have to flaunt his authority, since it was visible and tangible.
Manliness is somewhat different. It is influenced and informed by the Judaic ideas which declare pride a vice and set the virtue not as a means to accrue worldly benefit for Oneself and One's posterity, but as an intrinsic good that One is duty bound to pursue for its own sake. Therefore it does not include the promise of public applause or authority. On the contrary, Manliness requires that One should be impervious to insults and humiliation, to be willing to swallow One's pride and dedicate Oneself to the great love of One's life. The Arthurian Knight of legend was not deterred by humiliating tasks and mockery in defending the honor of his Lady. As Kipling said in his great poem If:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Manliness requires not that things shall be done One's own way or not at all.
Manliness demands no place at the head of the table least it shall be overturned.
Manliness accepts whatever place and task the Love its possessor holds in his heart dictates in whatever capacity is expedient. A learned and respected doctor and famous intellectual may offer his services as a private under a simple farmer and hunter, if the latter has the experience require to achieve the task.
III: THE ESSENCE OF NATIONALISM
Many attribute the origin of modern Nationalism to the French Revolution, but a clearer and older source exists, which inspired the Parisian revolutionaries: Namely, the trial of Charles I
There was nothing particularly novel about Englishmen rising against the Crown and fighting Civil Wars. As a matter of fact, since the unhappy reign of Richard II (lasting for 22 years between 1377 and 1399), the English had not spent a single century in which some part of the country, often a significant and rich one, was not in armed rebellion against the King.
It was also not the first time a monarch was tried in England. The aforementioned Richard II on similar grounds- that his tyrannical conduct made him unfit to be king. However, the verdict in Richard's case was not Death but Deposition and, according to several sources, Parliament did no more than to accept the King's "voluntary" abdication and record the reason for it as his "unfitness" to occupy the Throne.
The great novelty in Charles' trial were both the indictment and the authority that the High Court claimed to have. While an organ of Parliament, the Court did not prosecute the King by the authority of the "Crown in Parliament" but by that of "the People of England" and the crimes were against "England" - not the Crown of England or any particular corporate body representing English groups or individuals, but the Nation itself.
By the very assertion that there was an England - separate from the continuous covenant between the People, the King, the Church and the Nobility, an England to which all of the above owed service, loyalty and obedience rather than to each other - Parliament created an abstraction of the English community, an abstraction that could destroy or create institutions to forward its own goals and safeguard its own interests.
Therefore, if the King grew destructive towards England, Parliament may remove, try and execute him. If Parliament grew destructive, it could be purged, prorogued, reassembled and disassembled by the Lord Protector. The English themselves could be imposed upon harshly and inconvenienced greatly - their traditional celebrations banned, their language limited, their trade tightly controlled and their old ways of rendering Divine Service altered - towards the end of achieving a more perfect England.
Nationalism is, in essence, unchanged ever since - the idea that it introduces is not the
ties-that-bind the Nation together and the Nation's existence (it would be absurd to argue that there was no land recognizable as England or distinctly English people, culture, laws and institutions before 1688).
Rather, it first attempts its abstraction and separation from all its myriad components and then the assertion that all those could be replaced or significantly changed without its destruction and, on the contrary, are OUGHT to be changed and sacrificed for the greater glory and greatness of this abstraction.
IV: Nationalisms: Benign and Malignant
That is not to say that Nationalism is always false or useless.
A beneficial form of the Doctrine of Nationalism, and a correct one, is that the Citizens and the Institutions of the Nation share more than their accidental association with each other, their relative place in the resulting society or an accident of their birth in the same land over the centuries of its continual settlement. While all these things are important, it's undeniable that nations possess each some unique quality or set of qualities, themes to their respective symphonies if you will, without which they lose coherence and fall apart.
These principles may be good or evil and I have no good advice to those unhappy peoples who had inherited the latter. To replace that principle without destroying the Nation is a hard and arduous task which is tantamount to the birth of a new Nation altogether. I know of only one case in which it was done successfully, in a beneficial manner and while preserving all the healthy organs of the old Nation and transferring them to the new one, and this is the American Revolution.
While the goal of Nationalism is to preserve the Principle of the Nation, expand it to the entire Citizenry and emphasize it everywhere, it is beneficial and laudable.
When this principle, however, or just the mere abstraction of the Nation takes precedence over all else it turns dangerous and destructive.
It may declare entire tribes of citizens, dialects, arts and opinions, all anciently rooted in the soil and the Principle of the Nation inly because they offend the purist's demand for national uniformity rather than unity.
The patriot in this case must leave the effort which he formerly led or as Anne Fairfax shouted at the High Court standing in judgement of king Charles I: "He (Lord Thomas Fairfax, her husband) has more wit to be here!"