This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Blum, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Best traditions patriotism

A commentary on Miller, Wingo and Ben-Porath

University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA

Ben-Porath sees patriotism as involving attachment to fellow citizens as part of a shared fate community. Wingo places shared values at the center of patriotism. Miller argues that political ties to fellow nationals stemming from participation in imposing laws and policies on them will also generate obligations to non-nationals (especially the poor of many other nations). But he sees patriotism as involving a deeper love of one's nation that carries with it epistemic and moral distortions of the actual operations of one's nation, and for this reason rejects patriotism. I propose an alternative conception of patriotism (though consistent with Ben-Porath's and Wingo's) whose content is the ‘best traditions’ of one's nation (liberty, equality, appropriate separation of powers, for example).This does not require expecting one's nation actually to live up to those traditions at any given time, thus protecting against wish-induced distortions of the historical and contemporary record. Best traditions patriotism would enable teachers to be patriotic without supporting a given current regime,and would support critical thinking and other educationally beneficial goals. Wingo fails to recognize how universal values can be combined with particularistic understandings. Ben-Porath fails to provide strong enough democratic conditions on the nation to support her view that patriotism is generally a virtue.

Key Words: best traditions • national unity • patriotism • shared fate • universality and particularity

Theory and Research in Education, Vol. 5, No. 1, 61-68 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1477878507073612


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?