With everything going on lately, I find it hard to feel pride for my country on this “day of independence.” Patriotism today should look a bit different, in my opinion.
That is not to say that I don’t love this country; I do. It’s possible to feel shame, frustration, and sadness while simultaneously feeling gratitude and love.
And I even wonder if the reason I struggle to feel proud is in part because of how sincerely I care about where I’m from. And how I want it to be better.
I found this passage in The Idler. It’s from the 19th century, but I think it’s relevant today:
“A true patriot, in any good sense of the word, is a man who, finding himself born into a particular community, and, therefore, to some slight extent, sharing the responsibility of its corporate acts, desires to see the community of which he is a member behave always in the most upright and honourable manner. If his country did so behave, he might naturally be proud of her; unfortunately, countries in the concrete oftener give one cause for shame and humiliation. If such a man could see his land striving, not to find new markets for her iron and her cotton by unjust aggression, not to slaughter helpless [people] at the instigation of her merchants, not to force opium or gin on unwilling lower [peoples], but to act with such scrupulous justice that her name should be a synonym for fair dealing among the nations, then, indeed, he might be justly glad he belonged to her. But if she does wrong, a true patriot ought to raise his voice against that wrong … Your true patriot would even desire to see his country defeated and humbled whenever she embarked on a course of oppression…”
Make no mistake: to identify dishonor within this country does not make a person thankless or unpatriotic. (This does not mean that a person must feel gratitude or express patriotism; I understand why some people might not.) But let’s rethink what patriotism today looks like.
Happy Fourth, friends. It may look and feel a bit different this year, for good reason. Stay safe and keep using your voice, time, and/or money to help better the lives of those who continue to be marginalized in this country.
