What a wonderful post. As a person married to a postcolonial scholar (and who backs up your cites–she’s buried in Appadurai right now), I feel this deep contradiction between the notion of loyalty to the country as an idea and loyalty to country as is. The contrast between Chas and Dave could not be clearer. I line up my idea of America with the segments of the “nation” that I currently believe. Hopefully, the strengths of our citizens and future-full citizens like Dave (hello!) will help save us from ourselves.

Dave, I don’t think I’ve read a better sentence that articulated how I feel about being a US citizen. Thanks for writing it.

Kosovo has its own long history of war and invasion, and in some ways might be considered one of the first sites of the East/West conflict that some people see as culminating in the events of 9/11, with the 1389 battle of Kosovo Polje. Renan refers to two things that construct a nation: a shared history, to include a sense of shared struggles and troubles, and the desire to live together or sense of common feeling that Kirill refers to. (Hi Kirill! Good to hear from you!)

Both Ernest Renan and Benedict Anderson, in Imagined Communities, are careful to distinguish the concept of nation from the concept of state, and I wonder if some of the suspicions some folks have expressed about patriotism are related to its associations with states and government. Anderson suggests that the definition of a nation lies in its characteristics as an imagined limited sovereign community, and the nation-as-state is an extension of that sovereignty.

Patriotism, as some read it, celebrate the ultimate extension of that sovereignty in the idea that one’s government is always right. That’s a sentiment I have some problems with, and others do as well, as Janny Scott points out in a NYT article on “The Changing Faces of Patriotism”: today, as in Dr. Johnson’s time, patriotism is often “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I like the point that Scott makes about our 18th-century rebel colonists, and how their version of patriotism consisted both of an affection for a nation and an acknowledgement of its problems; a sense of protecting citizens against the abuses of the state. In that sense, it seems to me, the USA-PATRIOT act and the legislation Kirill refers to are deeply antipatriotic.

Hence, via Janny Scott, the ambiguity Chris refers to: are “great Americans” those who demonstrate loyalty to the state no matter what the circumstance or cost — or those who dedicate the highest commitment to “upholding the ideals that the country represents” (Scott) and protecting citizens against any encroachment upon those ideals, either from without or within, no matter what the cost? Either view constructs itself in relation to a state, though, rather than to Renan’s sense of a common history and will to live in concert with one another.

This is what I wrote last night but did not post because I wanted to review it later:

I do not consider myself to be a patriot, and it’s because I think that particular definition carries the connotation of loyalty without reason. Historically, from 1776 to 1882, people had a reason to pledge to a new country because most people who emigrated to this country had nothing else or were persecuted due to religious rifts.

When 9-11 happened, I was ready to sign up and fight myself. I felt such a fierce sense to defend my children that I would have done anything to keep them safe. Many of my emotions were wrapped up in what happened 9-11, but ultimately, my thinking was geared towards what was best for my children, and nothing more: a panic reflex, really.

It had nothing to do with the government. It was not borne out of a patriotic sense of duty.

I’m glad that you’ve jostled my thinking about this. Go see what desert democrat has been saying about sexism in the presidential race–it’s also thought-provoking.