Or, not to beg the preliminary question, is it a virtue at all ? Mr. GOSCHEN has been lecturing the rising generation of England upon the necessity of maintaining a lofty national spirit, but has scarcely touched either of these questions in its simple form. To define patriotism as love for, and pride in, one's country is easy. To arrive at a solid ethical basis for it is quite another matter. It is a commonplace to assert that self-sacrifice for the sake of fatherland is the citizen's duty. But why is it a duty, and when does it cease to be a duty ? These are questions which the orator and the poet ignore, but which dry-light philosophers and coarsely unpoetic natures begin to agree in examining. From HOMER, TYRTÆUS, and HORACE down to SCOTT or TENNYSON, the whole race of bards sings in unison that it is dulce et decorum to die for one's country, and that the man " whose heart hath ne'er within him burned " for his native Greece, Italy, England, or Caledonia, however " stern and wild " or otherwise those lands may be, is doomed to be, and deserves to be, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. And with the poets go all those of mankind who are apt to yield to mere generous impulses and unanalysed affections. " Our country, right or wrong," appears to them a maxim as unquestionable as the fifth commandment. With them, too, agreed the older order of idealistic philosophers. PLATO went so far as to maintain that the fatherland and its laws were things deserving of more honour and reverence than even parents themselves. But the world, which "advances" on so many lines, intellectual and moral, has been obliged to advance on this line also. The modern student of ethics shakes his sapient head at patriotism as a virtue Mr. SIDGWICK remarks that "whether a citizen is at any time morally bound to more than certain legally or constitutionally determined duties does not now seem to be clear ;" and therein he but follows cautiously KANT'S dictum that a country has no inherent natural right to the obedience of its citizens. To moralists of this type patriotism is an objectionable disturbing element—an impediment to the play of pure reason, and the faculty of seeing things as they are. OVID once committed himself to speaking of "the love of fatherland, stronger than reason," and that anything should be stronger than reason is naturally a heinous condition of things to the philosophic mind. Nor would we quarrel with the philosopher thereat. We would only ask him to be careful that, in constructing his syllogisms, he has taken all the necessary factors into account.
Though all ages, even the most barbarous, and all countries, even the least eminent, have believed in the citizen loving, belauding, and dying for his native land, there have, no doubt, always been self-centred individuals and constitutional cynics who have asked themselves, when they dared not ask their neighbours, why a citizen should recognise any obligation to anything beyond his own precious self. Side by side with ÆSCHYLUS or PLATO or HORACE went those who held that " any land where you are prosperous is your fatherland." Such persons would never have won a battle of Marathon, or brought their country through to the brilliant issue of Zama. Fortunately they were few in number, and had little to say in the destinies of the country for which their affection was such cupboard-love. But in those times their number increases daily. There are many circumstances which tend to replace the fine old patriotism by a watery "cosmopolitanism" which might, perhaps, better be called sheer blank indifference. Among the ancients the zeal for home, with its Lares and Penates, and for the State, with its religious and other institutions, was inevitable. Foreigners were barbarians, cut off by other languages, other gods and rites, other customs. The natural attitude of state to state was one of hostility. To go abroad meant to sacrifice much comfort, all ambition, and most of the privileges of a free man. It was banishment, felt as keenly as by NORFOLK in " Richard II." In later times, however much new religious ideas had brought mankind into closer brotherhood and rendered national customs more homogeneous, yet travelling was uncommon and difficult, the disabilities of aliens were great, and perpetual wars kept alive everywhere the sentiment of distinct nationality. In modern times the facilities of travel and relations of trade have made nations better acquainted with others' virtues and their own deficiencies. Ease of emigration and the success of emigrants have made the breaking of the tie with the home land more and more commonplace. That any races were born to be permanently hostile to each other is a doctrine now held only by French and Germans relatively to each other. Increased intercourse has produced a closer similarity of constitutions, dress, and customs. The linguistic difficulty has been largely surmounted. Religious intolerances and antipathies retain no great potency among the more civilised of peoples. Moreover, the vogue of philosophic scepticism is dissolving all sorts of primitive ideas. The so-called education of the present day, confident in its miserably jejune logic, is apt to look upon one's country as just so much earth, and on the state as so much machinery, neither one nor the other being capable of inspiring a tender sentiment. Democracy, uninformed by any great idea, and looking upon the state as but a temporary majority of persons, will recognise no obligation of self-sacrifice for anything so commonplace as " the country." Yet again, the growth of industrial unions extending from country to country induces many workers to place the interests of their trade first and of their fatherland but a poor second. Socialists openly proclaim the same doctrine. The result of all these circumstances is that patriotism as a sentiment shows clear signs of decay ; and that cosmopolitanism, whether regarded as a transcendental conception of a wider human federation, or as a mere negation of patriotic sentiment, is gaining ground. Men are beginning to treat the fact of their being born and nurtured in a certain country as only a geographical and historical accident not entailing any moral obligation. Mr. GOSCHEN acutely notes two spirits which seriously affect patriotism in practice. The one is the spirit of parochialism, which will sacrifice the gravest national interests for the sake of getting a town pump, and will bear a national humiliation if only it can secure the new post-office. If Mr. GOSCHEN lived among ourselves, he would witness the spectacle of a community which has been brought to realise all too keenly how far parochial districts will go in bringing disaster on the country for the sake of their own little railway or other local fancy. The other spirit is that of party, which will sometimes lead one faction to welcome disaster to the whole nation provided the disaster brings discredit and defeat to the other side. It remains to be seen whether party spirit will be overcome by patriotism among ourselves when a Government proposes manfully to act for the public weal against all the clamours of parochialists.
We do not believe in Jingoism, if Jingoism means to be Chauvinists. Bragging of one's country in season and out of season is not patriotism. It is intrinsically no better than bragging of one's village, a proceeding of which any other village can see the folly and feel the offence. None the less, natural regard for one's village, then for one's province, and thence for one's country, is a thing to be commended and not analysed. It may be partly due to unreasoning affection for old associations, partly to love of the friends whose circle is in the locality, partly to that self-esteem which will not admit inferiority of the place from which one comes. In the case of a great country it may be pride in its power and history. It may even be a sense of solid obligation for the advantages derived from its superior institutions, in which we have shared. It may be, and in the case of Englishmen it is, all these things. To dissect our patriotism and call it ethically baseless may be sport for philosophisers, but it is death to milder men. " Impressions are often juster than judgments," and we declare for the natural sentiment. If the result of patriotism is to maintain the power and high character of the fatherland, to keep it superior or at least not inferior, to others, and to improve the individual's own morale by the habit of making sacrifices in its behalf, we do not care for all the syllogistic counter-demonstrations of all the logicians and moralists. In these days, when wars are scarce and patriotic deaths but little called for, the true patriot is he who deliberately encourages his affection for his country as a whole, who looks broadly and enthusiastically at its interests, and who disregards the cries of party or of parish when the country itself cries otherwise.
Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 1893, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8532444
No comments:
Post a Comment