Overdoing Patriotism
To me, the recent debate at this blog about perceived anti-American sentiments, whether Americans can be proud of their country, call it a “city on a hill” and so on, and possibly boycotting Dutch companies and products, provides an interesting case study of American patriotism. For those who know a bit about the Netherlands, they know that we’re not the most patriotic people in the world. Not only that, we aren’t very fond of patriotism or nationalism either. You can be proud of your country, of course, but Dutch people have the natural tendency not to be – what we consider to be – overly proud of their country.
And we are naturally put off by other people who are very nationalistic or patriotic as well.
But that in an attempt to give you all some insight into how I look at the debate, how the debate comes across from a Dutch perspective.
Now, what’s interesting is that I wrote to an American commenter who defended torture that if he would continue to defend it, he should stop pretending that America has the moral high ground. If you torture, and if you defend torturing prisoners, you’ve got absolutely no right whatsoever to claim that you’re better than the rest of the world. Then I added to that commenter that he should stop referring to his country as such anyway because his country has already tortured people for years – and of course because he has defended it for years already.
From my perspective the above makes complete sense. Yet, some Americans responded furiously. Jason Steck even wrote a post on the subject arguing that I said that no American can be proud of his country; which isn’t what I said of course. But it’s interpreted in that way nonetheless.
Why is that? Well, I think – again from my perspective – it’s due to over-patriotism. When someone criticizes your country: they’re anti! Even when the person doing the criticizing is actually someone who is very much pro your country, and has a history of calling out others who are anti.
But in this debate, that doesn’t matter. It’s not about arguments, it’s about emotions. It’s about patriotism.
And that’s interesting: all the more so because Dutch people aren’t patriotic as such. We seldom encounter people who are that patriotic. The French and the Americans are both very patriotic, and that always fascinates and, yes, entertains us, at the same time. Of course, sometimes it angers us because all too often when we criticize their country, both peoples respond furiously.
Dutch people like myself would say: the results of exaggerated patriotism.
Whatever the causes may be, it’s interesting; as an American Studies student the reaction fascinates me. It provides, so to speak, an interesting case study in American patriotism.
Of course you all are allowed to disagree with me: that’s what this blog is all about. As such, I encourage Jason responding to my comment by publishing a post. That’s a good thing; the more debates the better. This way – if everyone remains calm at least – we all learn something; we’re an international websites, and sometimes one can’t help but notice that we may agree on a great many things, we come from two completely different worlds.
This is familiar terrain for me, since my girlfriend comes from Turkey; we too have cultural differences, and differences in perspectives sometimes.
Lastly, something about the boycott vs. criticizing people for defending certain policies and certain policies itself: there’s a great difference between the two. One consists out of words, and realizes that you can’t hold an entire society responsible for something the government does (my remark was merely a sneer towards Americans who said that the Dutch as a whole are responsible for whatever it is the government does – a logical fallacy since we don’t vote about whether or not the government should prosecute someone; the only way for us to do something about it is to vote for others next time and if people would take the time to look at the polls, they’d see that the Prime Minister and his party are doing horribly), except for when that individual defends the practices of the government, while the other option doesn’t consist out of words, but is meant to hurt, economically hurt, another country; not just it’s government, but it’s people.
“Stop saying city on a hill” or “I’m not buying your products anymore.” There’s a great difference.
Michael, the problem here is that I did some research as you suggested, and I see that the issue of the blasphemy laws has been under debate for some time in your country (since the time of the murder of Van Gogh, at least.) If I understand it correctly, your party (VVD, right?) was part of the coalition calling for those laws to be overturned, but they failed to do so. And each time something like this comes up, it seems that there are many in your country’s govt who are too nervous about addressing it by overturning the law (even though the law is almost never enforced.) Now, I’m assuming this is the law that will be used to prosecute Wilder, so it’s a bit disingenuous to act as though this is the first time this is coming up, that perhaps you guys will vote people out of office over it later, etc, when the opportunity to do so has already come and gone. Don’t you think that means that more pressure needs to be put on your government?
And will you please answer our repeated questions about whether anyone in your country is attempting to put that pressure on? Or direct us to what action COULD be taken, since you disagree with the use of a boycott (and I already attempted to do what you vaguely suggested, contacting our ambassador, but he inconveniently died recently.)
The implication that only blind "patriotism" can lie at the root of objections to some of your recent comments, Michael, is where you make your error.
Perhaps it is just that your recent comments were unfair, inaccurate, or over-expansive.
Perhaps people can object to some things you say without having their motive be some dysfunctional nationalism or ignorance.
Perhaps you are, indeed, capable of making a mistake and mis-speaking once in a while.
And perhaps others aren’t always wrong when they object to it and ask for your retraction or modification.
Hear, hear, Jason.
I have to quibble a bit with the wording of this post, too, because I think it’d be more correct to say that you feel that Americans are too nationalistic (which is the form of national loyalty and pride which takes no responsibility for faults) vs. patriotic. I don’t know the degree to which Dutch people espouse either trait, but I think when you say you are proud of your country you really do mean patriotism by that (true patriotism involves pride, but is also willing to see faults and to want to correct them.)
And at issue here is that you are accusing us of nationalism and we reject that accusation; we don’t believe that we are unwilling to accept criticism or find faults which need correcting, but instead when we object to certain things it’s because we don’t think the criticism is accurate in that particular case, or that perhaps it’s being WAY overstated.
And then when we object, instead of acknowledging that this could be a difference of opinion, you instead accuse us of nationalism/jingoism, which is insulting. Then you take the fact that we’re insulted as further ‘proof’ that we are hypersensitive to criticism because we’re overly nationalistic. It’s maddening, really, and I think if you’d step back from it you’d see what we’re talking about.
It’s not a logical fallacy to hold the individuals of a democratic nation collectively responsible, as a general rule, for the acts of their democraticly elected officials. It is through the government that you act collectively as a people. Their acts ARE your acts. Are you suggesting that the people are not sovereign, that the government exercises sovereignty in its own right, rather than on behalf of the Danish people?
Frankly, the world generally holds even the subjects of non-democratic dictatorships collectively responsible for the sins of the dictators who rule them. The embargo against Saddam Hussein’s regime most definitely had a very negative impact on the Iraqis people, but that was ordered by the U.N. Such is the case with all embargoes.
I supported the "buy Danish" campaign run by Michelle Malkin and others back when the cartoons first ran. I didn’t notice many Dutch folks complaining about collective REWARDS at the time.
Actually: it has been used, but most have been acquitted. It’s why we call it a useless law these days. They can sue someone, but the judge says "freedom of speech trumps" this or that (also because God has a hard time letting his feelings be known).
I don’t think that this is the particular law on which they may sue Wilders. It’s meant to protect God, not a religion in itself. They can sue him for other laws – which have been more successful – such as discrimination, bigotry, making it illegal to insult people, individuals and groups, and so on.
Having said that, the fact that they’re merely ‘looking at the options’ basically means that they know they don’t have a good case against him. It implies that they’re saying this stuff to please certain particular people.
Pressure: there’s constant pressure on the government, especially from the media. Balkenende has been blasted for months already. If the government sues Wilders, you will see the Dutch responding in a more aggressive manner; if the government does this, it’s alienating the majority of the population, and you’ll see people responding forcefully to it. Petitions, questions in Parliament, possibly protests, and so on.
That’s another reason I don’t think they’ll do this.
That and the fact that they’ll make Wilders more popular by suing him.
Basically, I know the law a bit to put it reasonably mildly, they don’t have a case. This one will go down burning.
Direct action: first wait. They’re not doing anything yet, and I think they won’t do anything either. To do so means political suicide and they know it. However, IF they do something I’ll give you e-mail addresses of members of Parliament – I’ll publish them – I’ll make it easy for you to contact the Dutch ambassador and so on. I’ll even write an e-mail you can just copy paste or improve a bit if you want.
Frankly, I think that I’ve been more critical of my government in the past – also on this subject – then anyone else here. So it’s not like I’m defending them on this. No, our opposition parties should make life impossible for Balkenende, and that’s what I’m pursuing – as are other conservatives.
But… we should be able to deal with this without foreign interference. In fact, I’d say, it’ll probably blow all over.
So, the random comments of a blogger constitutes "foreign interference" now?
If so, I hereby call upon the Dutch government to put an immediate stop to all "foreign interference" by its citizens in American elections.
That means you can’t criticize Obama any more, Michael.
I appreciate your clarifying that, because I don’t think it was at all clear before where you stood on it. I didn’t want to presume that your criticism of the boycott meant that you supported your government in this case, but you really didn’t say one way or the other and so the only thing you were saying was that you opposed the boycott (not that you supported other measures to pressure the govt.)
No foreign interference, eh, Michael? I’ll hold you to that the next time you start opining on things like, oh, I don’t know, American domestic elections and the like. I distinctly recall you once telling me that you didn’t care what the American customs were, as far you were concerned booing at some rah rah American political event was plain rude, no matter what Americans had to say about it.
Yes, Micheal. Before you respond again in public OR private, re-read this and think about it. This isn’t just random drive-by commenters whining because you disagreed with their pet issue. This is a co-blogger and one of the most loyal readers/commenters you have pointed out a repeated PATTERN.
Do you really think that the ONLY possibility is that we just don’t get it? Do you really think that your words questioning the motivations of Americans who object to SOME criticisms about their country have been the best available way to make the points you were trying to get at?
Well, let’s not be too hard on Michael, Jason. We can’t expect him to have the same perspective as we do. After all, he’s a 23 year old young man, and we all know they tend to be a bit egotistical, which makes them unable to be objective sometimes about their own faults. They’re, you know, sometimes overly proud of themselves.
Say, this might actually be something that would be of interest to someone at your university, to study this behavior, Jason!
That’s a really good point, Christine. I wonder what I would do if one of my students started throwing around sweeping stereotypes about a country that they are studying and then accusing anyone from that country who objects as just being motivated by blind nationalism?
Oh. That’s right. I would give them a big fat F.
Or a D, actually. Those are actually more communicative of "needs improvement".
I don’t know , Michael.
I have met plenty of Dutch people, and most of them were very patriotic.
I also read about resistance during WWII in Netherlands.
Non-patriots would not do what Dutch did to German occupants.
Perhaps you meant nationalism instead of patriotism?
Hmm, perhaps yes, but for a Dutchman, Americans are nationalistic, yet they call it patriotism (semantics really). You understand why I used the word patriotism? To me, it’s actually nationalism.
Conflating all defenses of the United States in under the blanket assumption of "nationalism" is a seriously flawed, even outright ignorant way of responding to refutations towards some specific allegation. Sometimes, there exist Americans who will agree that there are some flaws with the United States, but who will disagree with some specific allegations AT THE SAME TIME.
For an American Studies major to use stereotypes about out-of-control "patriotism" as the basis for sweeping assumptions about American culture is as foolish as someone studying the Netherlands using the assumption that the Dutch economy is based on the production of wooden shoes, windmills, and tulips. If you see a guy in a NASCAR shirt and a hat with an American flag on it, do you seriously think you’ve captured the essence of American political culture?
All nations are founded on self-serving myths. The United States of America is in no way unique in this area, though it is easier to see by virtue of America’s disproportionate power position in the world. We actually COULD have a discussion of how those national mythologies work, since I study state-making for a living. (Hint: One of the most successful such myths was constructed for FRANCE, of all places.) But then again I’m just one of those dumb Americans caught up in my own patriotism and incapable of seeing things objectively. Better wait until a European professor comes along.
I do believe that American isn’t a “shining city on a hill,” and I and virtually every other foreigner consider it to be quite arrogant when Americans say their country is, since they’re saying that their country is better than every other country, that means including better than the Netherlands, France, and so on. To me, there’s not one single country that can claim to be any such thing. There are, as I see it, say 30 very good, great countries, the US is certainly one of them. But I consider those countries to basically be equals. They’ve got their strengths, and their weaknesses. If that makes me a typical arrogant European, I frankly couldn’t care less, especially not because it makes me still less arrogant than those who adhere to a different reasoning, believing that their country is more ’special’ than every country out there, which isn’t something I claim about my country.
For what it’s worth: Jason, in your comments you once again pretend that I said something I didn’t say. But I leave it up to you all to decide whatever it is you want to believe, and whether or not you want to play the victim. O, and if I was half as authoritarian as some believe I am, I would have done something about this
debatebashfest instantly.