C.S. Lewis on Patriotism
Posted
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
by
Brian Beers
On Independence Day, Lewisâs thoughts on the love of country is a breath of fresh air. In these days of strident discourse on Americaâs role in the world we need a right understanding of our love for our country. We cannot throw out patriotism as some would do. Neither can we equate love for our nation with love for justice. The rest of this post is an excerpt from The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis.
Patriotism has, then, many faces. Those who would reject it entirely do not seem to have considered what will certainly stepâhas already begin to stepâinto its place. For a long time yet, or perhaps forever, nations will live in danger. Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least prepare for their defence.
Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for âtheir countryâ they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice or civilization, or humanity. This is a step down, not up. Patriotic sentiment did not of course need to disregard ethics. Good men needed to be convinced that their countyâs cause was just; but it was still their countryâs cause, not the cause of justice as such. The difference seems to me important. I may without self-righteousness or hypocrisy think it just to defend my house by force against a burglar; but if I start pretending that I blacked his eye purely on moral groundsâwholly indifferent to the fact that the house in question was mineâI become insufferable. The pretence that when Englandâs is just we are on Englandâs sideâas some neutral Don Quixote might beâfor that reason alone, is equally spurious. And nonsense draws evil after it. If our countryâs cause is the cause of God, wars be wars of annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world.
The glory of the old sentiment was that while it could steel men to the utmost endeavour, it still knew itself to be a sentiment. Wars could be heroic without pretending to be Holy Wars. The heroâs death was not confused with the martyrâs. And (delightfully) the same sentiment which could be so serious in a rear-guard action could also take itself as lightly as all happy loves often do. It could laugh at itself. Our older patriotic songs cannot be sung without a twinkle in the eye; later ones sound more like hymns. Give me âThe British Grenadiersâ (with a tow-row-row-row) any day rather than âLand of Hope and Gloryâ
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