Lately I have been thinking about the meaning
of “being proud of.” It is hard to drive
on a highway or walk down a street and not see
a billboard or a bumper sticker that says “Proud
to be American” or some variant thereof.
So I started to wonder what do we mean when we
utter or write such a phrase? To begin with, this
isn’t something that people do just for the
fun of it. Few are patriotic enough to spell out
their pride unless they mean it as a message addressing
a particular situation. That particular situation,
of course, has recently been provided first by
the 9/11 attacks, and now by the war on Iraq and
the controversy that it has generated, both nationally
and -- more dramatically -- internationally.
Even so, I suppose there is no logical contradiction
in, say, being proud of being an American and
yet oppose preemptive wars because they violate
international law. Indeed, many antiwar protesters
have made it a point of displaying their patriotism
with flags and slogans to reinforce the idea that
they don’t think of themselves as “anti-American,”
but simply anti-Bush foreign policy. So one can
be proud of being an American for many different,
sometimes blatantly contradictory reasons.
But more generally, and I don’t mean to
offend anybody by asking this question, whenever
I see the slogan “Proud to be American”
I want to stop the person and ask a simple question:
why? Or, more precisely, “what do you mean
by that?” Surely there are exceedingly good
things that the nation known as the United States
of America has done during the course of its history.
To name but a few, it created the first modern
democratic state based on the principles of the
European Enlightenment, it has successfully fought
off Adolf Hitler, and has sent a human being on
the Moon. Surely these are things to be mighty
proud of.
Then again, that very same United States of America
has done other things one would more likely be
ashamed of, including exterminating entire indigenous
populations in the process of building the new
nation, engaging in racist policies that have
been abandoned only gradually and painfully, and
holding the record for being the only nation ever
to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Should we as individuals be proud (or ashamed)
of these things? Well, we certainly didn’t
do them (though we may be taking advantage of
some of the outcomes). Let us remember that it
is by a simple accident of birth that one is American
as opposed to French, or Iraqi. And that most
of us don’t actually participate in our nation’s
civil life enough to claim any right to brag or
be sorry about what that nation does during our
lifetime (let alone what it did before we lived).
From that perspective, being proud of being an
American, French, or Iraqi is downright silly.
It would be like being proud of supporting a particular
baseball team just because one happens to live
in a particular town (oh, right, people do that!).
And yet, I understand the feeling that brings
people to cheer for a sports team or a nation.
Heck, I religiously watch the soccer world cup,
proudly recounting the past and present feats
of the Italian team, even though I have made absolutely
no contribution to it. Furthermore, despite the
fact that I profoundly dislike any form of nationalism
from a rational perspective, I have to admit that
I feel at home when I enter a restaurant that
serves good Chianti and pasta al dente. Indeed,
I caught myself even at being somewhat boastful
of the remote history of my country, from the
absolute geographical and cultural dominance of
the Roman Empire (take that, George Bush!) to
the masterpieces of Renaissance artists! But,
believe me, in my sober moments I realize that
the Roman Empire wasn’t exactly a political
machinery to be proud of, and that Michelangelo
did the Sistine Chapel completely independently
of any help from me whatsoever.
What, then, does it mean to be “proud of”
being associated with an abstract entity such
as a team or a nation? I suppose it is a reflection
of the deep need for a sense of belonging that
we all have, mixed with whatever imprinting we
got from the surrounding environment when we were
growing up. There is nothing wrong with that:
it is fun to watch sports events with some sort
of emotional involvement (not just as “spectators”),
and it is even good to feel some degree of cohesion
with the society with live in. What is not good
is to forget to at least occasionally step outside
of our feelings and take a look at the question
from a more neutral ground. Then it shouldn’t
be difficult to realize that other people have
just as much right to feel “proud of”
being something else as we do, and that we are
therefore not entitled to trample all over them
with a condescending smile on our face. Is that
too much to ask?
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