Should Americans be Patriotic? G.K. Chesterton on how to improve our country
American pride is at a low according to a recent Gallup poll. 70 percent of Americans say they are proud to be American, and only 45 percent say extremely proud, which is the lowest in at least 18 years.
The American people are confused about how they should feel about their country.
In one camp you have a golden-haired man who would like to make America great again, implying (rightly or wrongly) that it was once great.
In another camp you have Colin Kaepernick who just convinced Nike to pull the release of their Betsy Ross-inspired shoes because they allude to a time in American history in which slavery was supported.
These things raise good questions, I think.
Is it right to have pride in the USA?
Should we agree with that political orientation that generally aligns itself with an optimistic attitude toward America, shouting from the top of Mt. Rushmore the superiority of our states?
Or should we agree with that political orientation that generally aligns itself with a pessimistic attitude toward America, preaching on the depravity of our democracy?
In other words, should we love our country even though it may not be perfect?
I don’t want to put words in the mouth of the greatest thinker of the 20th century, but I think the gigantic Englishman G.K. Chesterton would have responded like this:
We should love our country precisely because it may not be perfect. Patriotic love is the only way it could possibly change.
In his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton states that this alternative between optimism and pessimism is a terrible mistake. The right attitude is neither thinking America is as good as it could be, or even thinking America is as bad as it could be. The right attitude is thinking of America as ours.
The right attitude is neither optimism nor pessimism, but rather patriotism.
Granted, Chesterton’s main argument for patriotism is in reference to a “cosmic” loyalty to the planet at large or simply life itself. He says people with optimistic or pessimistic attitudes assume we should criticize our lives “as if we were house-hunting, as if we were being shown a new suite of apartments.”
If an alien from outer space came to earth, he could rightly treat his visit to our planet like house-hunting, discussing “whether the advantage of summer woods made up for the disadvantage of rabid dogs, just as a man looking for a house might weigh the presence of a balcony against the absence of an ocean view.”
But we earthlings aren’t in that position. “A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it.”
The same goes with our own United States of America.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t choose to be born here. It just kind of happened. To be alive in America was a pretty big life decision that I was suspiciously uninvolved in.
And I assume the majority of us will continue to live in the USA, or whichever country you’re reading this from (I see you Bulgaria, comprising .04% of my readership). It’s possible to be so disgusted with America that we leave, but that seems unlikely.
So, the real question becomes not whether America is a good country or a bad country, or a kind of good country or a kind of bad country. It honestly doesn’t matter to what degree it is good or bad.
The only helpful question is whether America is ours. And the answer to that is a definitive yes.
And because America is ours, we have no choice but to love her without reason. She’s the only one we’ve got. There is no further point in critiquing her as if we could abandon her at any moment.
But the ultimate secret lies in this: the moment we accept her as ours and love her like patriots, she will begin to grow more beautiful. If you want America to be great again (or just great), you must have a transcendent, unreasonable loyalty to her.
Optimists and pessimists won’t make America beautiful - optimists because they think she is already beautiful, and pessimists because she couldn’t possibly be.
But patriots love America for no real reason at all. The patriot loves America not for its past, present or future, but because it is theirs, like a parent loves a child. When the parent loves the child first without reason, the kid then grows to become loveable.
I’ll allow ole Chesterton to use a district of London called Pimlico as an illustration. Pimlico is apparently a pretty undesirable place to live. The 2.3% of my readership residing in the U.K. can confirm in the comment section.
To ease your reading, I’ve provided a modern paraphrase.
“Let’s say we are dealing with a desperate, miserable thing – say Pimlico, the district in central London. If we think about what’s really best for Pimlico, we’ll find that this train of thought leads to mystic patriotism. It isn’t enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico. In that case he’ll simply cut his throat or move to Chelsea. And it certainly isn’t enough for a man to approve of Pimlico, because then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico, to love it with a transcendental connection and without any earthly reason. If a man who truly loved Pimlico existed, then Pimlico would raise herself into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would dress herself as a woman does when she’s loved. Decoration isn’t given to hide horrible things. They are given to decorate things already adorable. A mother doesn’t give her child a pink bow because she's very ugly without it. A lover doesn’t give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers loved children, if they loved it arbitrarily, simply because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be more beautiful than Florence. Some readers will say this is just a fantasy. My answer is that this is the actual history of mankind. It is a fact that this is how cities grew great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization, and you’ll find them gathered around some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honor to a spot and then afterwards gained glory for it. Men didn’t love Rome because she was great. She was great because they loved her.”
Conclusion
The right attitude toward America, if we want to change her for the better, is not optimism or pessimism. It is a combination of the two called patriotism.
But not just any combination. We don’t want to see America as a mixture of good and evil, with a decent amount of good and a decent amount of bad, as if they offset each other. This attitude doesn’t result in action.
And we need action. Regardless of where you stand politically, I think we can all agree that America is not the country it could be.
No, we want some way in which we can wholeheartedly hate and wholeheartedly love it, which is the attitude of the real patriot.
So, the question our British friend would ask you this 4th of July is this:
Do you hate America enough to change it, but love it enough to think it worth changing?
Or, in short, are you a patriot?
Editor’s Note:
If you enjoyed the G.K. Chesterton paraphrase but haven’t read him before because he’s always been too old and British, then I have some exciting news so LISTEN UP, FRIENDS.
G.K Chesterton is my favorite author ever, and his book Orthodoxy is my favorite book, and you should drop everything and go read it right now.
His style of writing and big vocabulary, however, make it seem like he is just too much for the every day person like you and me. But as you can see, Orthodoxy is the opposite of dull. It is the most imaginative, adventurous, brilliant book on Christianity every written.
And so I can more easily share my favorite book with my friends, I HAVE REWRITTEN THE WHOLE THING. At some point in the hopefully-not-too-distant future you will be able to bask in the Christian classic without breaking a sweat.
The book is not yet published (I’m looking for help finding an agent and publisher, if you know anyone hit me up…) so SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL NEWSLETTER NOW so that you don’t miss it when it comes out.
In the meantime, my bromance with G.K. will live on in the form of more posts about him here at peternorthcutt.com.
