"Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes"--Personal Reflections

 Yale Professor Steven B. Smith’s book, Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes, was heavy going in the beginning. There was for me an over- abundance of references to ancient philosophers and political thinkers.  However, page by page, chapter by chapter, I became more and more impressed.  In the end, I am filled with admiration for this book as Smith convincingly defines the essence of "Patriotism", which embraces the best values in America without claiming perfection or denying the worth of Cosmopolitanism, which can become too utopian and unrealistic.

 

I was also reminded how the feeling of patriotism which Professor Smith describes can attach not only to our nation but also to an institution or company where one spends much of their life and career, like Yale and Procter & Gamble.

 

Smith, not entirely correctly in my opinion, argues that America was the first, and perhaps still is the only nation founded on a creed.  We are a creedal people, he asserts.  We keep referring back to our Founding Fathers, to our Constitution and to our Bill of Rights to a degree the citizens of no other country do—even if we argue intensely as to what is the right interpretation of the Constitution.  (I write “not entirely correctly” because while the frequency of our referring to our Constitution is probably unique, the leadership and the citizens of other nations say, and to varying degrees believe, they are pursuing a “creed-“ based vision.)

 Professor Smith writes correctly that Patriotism requires “not only an understanding and appreciation of a set of abstract ideas, but also their embodiment in a particular history and tradition.”  “The ethos of a society embodies those traits of character that are normative for the community,” he writes.  They embrace the “kinds of persons and personality traits (who) are deemed desirable (andf) or kinds of actions and policies that are worthy of respect.”

 

Of course, there isn’t universal agreement on what are the policies and actions which are "worthy of respect" in our nation’s history.  However, I believe there will be broad agreement, for example, that Abraham Lincoln’s principles and his determined and courageous leadership were what the nation needed at the time he was President; that Martin Luther King pursued a correct and admirable commitment to non-violent protest in order to advance the rights of minorities; that men and women sacrificing their lives in World War II to preserve the democracy of this country—these were irreplaceable, admirable deeds.

 

There would also be broad agreement on things that have been carried out by our Nation that are not admirable:  lynching, Jim Crow, the appropriation of Native American lands in violation of treaties and the internment of the Japanese in WW II.

 

My observation: the only way to preserve and build on our creed, our Purpose—and the only way to make the ethos of the place real, is by:  1) Results—demonstrating the ability to take actions needed to progress to achieving our Purpose; 2) Transparency—describing the bases for our actions explicitly in terms of the values they embody and 3) Sharing learning and history—by telling memorable stories of how the Purpose has been fulfilled in ways we admire or in ways that fail to measure up to fulfilling our Purpose.  That’s how we can continue to learn, thereby sustaining the Purpose and continuing to improve in achieving it.

 

Every institution, whether it be our Nation, a company like P&G, a university like Yale or a cultural center like the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, needs to be clear on its Creed or its Purpose.  It needs to understand the ethos it has and which it seeks to build and what are the actions and values and the storytelling that will make that not just a bunch of abstract thoughts but descriptive of an entity to which one wants to commit his or her very best effort and a good part of their lives.  This is what produces Loyalty and Patriotism.

 

In other words, loyalty and a spirit of Patriotism have to be earned by what the institution is setting out to do, by how well and consistently it is doing it, by living its values in practice, and by how successful it is in continuing to do better tomorrow than it is today, despite inevitable setbacks.

 

Professor Smith provides an excellent service by defining the nature of the “Patriotism” we should seek.  What he does not address—nor do I believe it was his intent—is to what degree our Nation today is earning the loyalty and the Patriotism he so well describes or, even more to the point, what can be done to strengthen it.

 

The foundation of Patriotism have been dangerously weakened.  Citizens’ trust in the government has plummeted.  Pew reports that the percentage of Americans saying they “trust the federal government’s decisions most of the time” plummeted from 73 percent in 1958 to just 19 percent in 2019.  Trust in other major institutions, including religion and schools (onl the military has been immune), has also declined precipitously.

 

Respect for “truth” and the commitment to a common, shared cause which are so necessary to support Patriotism have been shattered by a lack of value-based leadership, particularly embodied by Donald Trump.  Now, following the first year of the Biden Administration, beset with the overhanging pall of COVID, the impact of climate change and the competitive threat of China and other geo-political challenges, we are shaken by concerns about the sheer competence of our government, i.e., is it being led by people able to get done what they have promised and are expected and need to do? Too often the answer is "no". 

I don’t have a confident answer to what can be done to “Reclaim Patriotism,” returning to the title of Professor Smith’s book—other than to say it depends on leadership  There’s nothing new about that.  We have always depended on strong leadership at times of crisis.  Leaders able and brave enough to face reality, frame a uniting vision, marshal a clear and compelling stratgegy and take actions which, even if imperfectly, lead to substantive progress toward that vision.

 

I also know that I (indeed all of us) have a personal responsibility to work to the best of our abilities to make the life and the lives of people we touch better because we are where we are.