patriotism

Music: Ulrich Schnauss: Goodbye (2007)

Shaun and Emily, Independence Day guests, are on their way to Toy Joy as I take a break to catch up on some computing this morning. This afternoon we're driving out to Hayes county for a backyard Fourth of July bash, which will feature not one, not two, but three funk bands (the new Jack in the Box commercial, "Don't Stop the Funk," keeps playing in my head). If I don't hear a cover of the Ohio Player's "Fire" I'm gonna be mighty funkapointed.

Anyway, taking out the trash this morning I noticed a bumper sticker on Emily's Shaun's car: "I pledge allegiance, not blind obedience." The sentiment is apt today, a time when it is relatively unfashionable to be patriotic as an academic. Same as it ever was, frankly, only on this side of Nine-eleven even more so. Thinking about this bumper-sticker defiance also helped me to remember a short essay by Richard Rorty from 1994, "The Unpatriotic Academy."

Rorty's argument was advanced during the last (serious) gasp of identity politics as a viable scholarly approach to social change. At first blush he is dismissing so-called "multiculturalism" as antipatriotic and promoting sectarian division. But his argument is much more complicated: "a nation cannot reform itself unless it takes pride in itself---unless it has an identity, rejoices in it, reflects upon it, and tries to live up to it." In other words, identity is important, both particular and collective; "a sense of shared identity is not an evil. It is an absolutely essential component of citizenship, of any attempt to take our country and its problems seriously." Assembling under the idea of a nation, in other words, is the precondition of social change. You and I cannot call for a better world, for ending hunger, for bringing our troops home unless we give a shit about being "American." Rorty is taking identity politics at its absolute word and saying: right on, lets get down with "the people" too, that constituted body that is comprised of me in my generic sense, divested of my particulars.

The risk of patriotism is blind nationalism. The patriot is critical. The patriot demands independence from the tyranny of colonialism. The patriots said, "screw you, Britain, we're American." Nationalism, on the other hand, is a diluted patriotism, patriotism without critical reasoning. Patriotism requires shooting yourself in the foot every now and again; it's not easy to be a true patriot (to say, for example, that you support the troops while you in no way support the president, and so on). Nationalism, like suicide, is painless.

I consider myself a patriot, and I think part of my job---the teaching part, to be more precise---is in a sense a patriotic duty. Teaching others (and always myself) to think more critically, to ask more from our news sources, to participate in deliberation outside the classroom, is an attempt to create the conditions of social change. Rorty speaks of figures to be proud of: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Martin Luther King. These people we claim as "ours." But more importantly are the values that these figures promoted: equality for all, justice, the pursuit of property happiness. Even if these ideals create a lot of lip service, because we intone them relentlessly we get to call people on the carpet who are intolerant or who strive to make others unequal, we get to call-out those who would disenfranchise others. I'm proud to be able to do that and to shamelessly teach that. You cannot call-out all the evildoers all the time (sometimes you need to leave a foot un-shot), but even so, we leave in a country where one can speak to and confront power. You cannot do that everywhere in the world.

Of course, the university trends toward business. My courses are focused on higher-level critical thinking, while the more basic courses of my department, of my field, are often geared toward the marketplace. And perhaps this is why it is hard to declare one is patriot in the academy today: capitalism globalizes, it is a giant blob that erodes the boundaries of the national imaginary. Today we think of ourselves in respect to global forces, no longer a sovereign people, but a cynical body of standing stock to be toyed with by global companies in search of cheap labor. Capitalism in the academy makes every class into workforce preparedness; don't think, just make---just speak. Lose the "um" and "like" kid, and remember, in a boardroom you only put three ideas per PowerPoint slide!

So when this nation-less, workforce bias is the backdrop of our undergraduates' college experiences---this workforce preparedness training (and standardized testing for "accountability" isn't far behind, you just wait)---are we surprised to see apathetic, bleary-eyed students who can't even say the pledge of allegiance? Students who, rather, spout-off talking point scripts from their favorite cable news television channel whenever politics is discussed in the classroom? Patriotism has become an unthinking nationalism, and so we educators start to think patriotism is evil. Patriotism has become a talking point, push-buttom-click-click stump speech. Patriotism has been claimed by the talk-show right in the name of nationalist evil (the FOX flap over the Obamas' fist-bump gesture comes to mind).

Postmodernity poses quite a pickle for patriotism: as our mediated world continues to globalize, as media companies supplant resource companies as the true power-brokers in the world, and as our universities are increasingly absorbed by their business schools and athletics programs (viz., media outlets), an engaged, deliberative citizenry is no more because Mr. Smith Goes to Washington no longer informs our national fantasy. The image of citizenship has shifted from a good person speaking well in public to an 18-24 year old young person texting a vote for American Idol.

Folks have been saying this for decades, of course. But when we think about patriotism and the nation state, we're dealing with an imaginary or fantasy structure. That structure is held in place by an infrastructure that is (Baudrillard be damned) increasingly virtual, spun, floating . . . . As a consequence, what it means to be an "American" has become whether or not you watch FOX or CNN. To be a "patriot" you have to wholly subscribe to the two-dimensional political candidates that reduce "the Nation" to a shadow puppet play on the wall of a cave.

I'm tired of non-academics and media pundits assuming because I am a professor and decidedly left of center that somehow I am unpatriotic. Not true: I pledge allegiance; I combat blind obedience. Timothy Leary was a patriot; he taught me to question authority, but he didn't teach me to abandon a sense of national community (in fact, he relied on precisely that to get his message out). I am a patriot, I celebrate the fourth of July because, for me, this day represents my right to speak freely and support the equality of everyone (not just legal, but social too). This day also represents my right to be critical of the implosion of politics and popular culture. As a patriot, I also claim the right to party, to grill and smoke meats, and to blow shit up with firecrackers.