Posted on Tue, Aug. 05, 2003

History's hints about patriotism's complicated heritage
BY JULIA KELLER
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - (KRT) - It didn't start with Sept. 11, 2001. And it didn't start with Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Arguments about patriotism - who's promoting it, who's undermining it - are nothing new, historian Jonathan M. Hansen argues in a recently published book, "The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920" (University of Chicago Press, 264 pages, $51).

"It's always been a contested term," Hansen said in an interview from his home in Boston, where he holds a fellowship at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

It's certainly causing quarrels at the present moment, as many of those who criticize President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq find themselves branded as unpatriotic. Yet disagreement over what best characterizes patriotism - unquestioning obedience to the people in charge, or thoughtful dissent? - has deep roots in American history, Hansen said.

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, Hansen explained, public intellectuals of a progressive bent such as educational theorist John Dewey, social activist Jane Addams, labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, philosopher William James and author W.E.B. DuBois faced the same sorts of charges that dog some of today's left-leaning authors and commentators, such as Susan Sontag and Noam Chomsky.

In his book, Hansen calls the earlier cadre of dissenters "cosmopolitan patriots." He writes, "By calling them patriots, I mean to accentuate their claim that critical engagement with one's country constitutes the highest form of love. The cosmopolitan patriots rejected the notion ascendant in their day that patriotism entails uncritical loyalty to the government and to the military in wartime. … Critical vigilance became the keystone of their patriotism."

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Hansen started work on his book more than a decade ago, he said, and he could not have predicted that when it finally was published, the same issues would be roiling society once more. "It's a great coincidence - or an unfortunate one, really," he said. "I began this book just after the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. I was reading broadly just as that war was coming to a close. I was looking at the flags and bunting and celebration and wondering, `Has patriotism ever meant more than cheering military victories?'

"I'm always wary of historians who say, `Oh, yes, my work will fix the present moment, too.' But this work does have resonance and relevance (to today)," added Hansen, who has taught at Harvard and Boston universities.

In his book, Hansen notes that Debs, Addams, DuBois and others realized that patriotism was a complicated challenge. "How," Hansen writes, "does a country founded on liberal principles and composed of diverse cultures secure the solidarity required to safeguard individuality and promote social justice?"

Hansen opens his book with a description of the 1918 trial of Debs, the union organizer and five-time presidential candidate on the Socialist Party ticket, who was accused of violating the Espionage Act when he made a speech in Canton, Ohio, opposing World War I and praising the Bolshevik movement in Russia. At his subsequent trial in Cleveland, Debs declared that his Socialist critique of the United States actually was "the very embodiment of patriotism," Hansen writes.

"Patriotism, he argued, meant more than shedding blood and upholding law. As manifested in American history, patriotism meant defending sacred principles and resisting tyranny and oppression, often in defiance of the law. The court of King George III had branded America's Founding Fathers criminals and traitors, Debs reminded the jury." Debs, however, was convicted and served several years in prison, a confinement that many believe hastened his death in 1926 at an Elmhurst, Ill., hospital.

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In the wake of Sept. 11, Hansen said, patriotism briefly seemed to rise above ideology, as people arrayed across the political spectrum joined forces in horror over the unprovoked attacks on America that swallowed so many innocent lives. The old polarities that cast liberals as unpatriotic rabble-rousers and conservatives as staunch, unbending patriots were temporarily suspended, Hansen believes.

Since then, however, the traditional stereotypes have returned, he said. "Patriotism quickly became politicized. And anyone who opposes the war is somehow (seen as) un-American. But liberals are starting to say (to conservatives), `Hey, I'm going to fight you on this.' There is an opportunity here, in arguing for progressive reform in the language of the whole nation, to have a more inclusive rhetoric." The word "patriot," then, could be applied both to those who agree and those who disagree with the ruling political party's philosophy. Debate would be seen as helping, not harming, the nation's prospects.

Today's liberals might be able to learn from yesterday's progressives, Hansen said. The way Debs and others defined patriotism - as the intellectual birthright of those on both the left and the right - could be helpful in making the word "patriotism" more inclusive, more expansive.

Indeed, a discussion of patriotism invariably must move beyond the word itself, Hansen added. "It (his book) is about American national identity, about fundamental questions of equality."

Yet for all of their principled contrarianism, Debs and the other cosmopolitan patriots never saw their notions take hold, Hansen admitted. "They got smashed. Their ideas foundered on the shoals of jingoism. That raises the question, `Are their arguments still valuable?' My sense is that you don't stop listening to people if they don't win the day.

"Great rhetoric - even if it doesn't win in the moment - can get out the sentiment. It wasn't the end of their ideas. These ideas still resonate."

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© 2003, Chicago Tribune.


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Sempers,

Roger