“On Tyranny” - Chapter 19: “Be a patriot”
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“Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.”
Snyder begins the chapter with what patriotism is not. It is an extensive list and much of it feels specific to a figure with whom all are familiar.
For example, It is not patriotic to:
Dodge the draft and mock war heroes
Ask working families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then spend their contributions on one’s own companies
To admire foreign dictators
To say that Bashar al-Assaad and Vlaadimir. Putin are superior leaders
To call up on foreign leaders to intervene in American presidential elections
To share an adviser with Russian oligarchs
To appoint a National Security Advisor who likes to be called “General Misha” and then pardon him for his crimes
To refer to American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers”
To take heather care form families
To golf your way through a national epidemic in which half a million Americans die
To try to end democracy
There is more, but this gives a good idea of what patriotism is not. Do any examples come to mind?
Snyder points out that a nationalist might do all this, but that a nationalist is not a patriot. Nationalists encourage people to be their worst selves, and tout that worst self as our best. A nationalists, Snyder points out, quoting Orwell, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, [tends to be] “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Motivated by resentment, a nationalist has no value system to speak of. Nationalists are the scoundrels that clothe themselves in the “refuge of patriotism.” They care nothing for the people, really, and are governed by self-interest. He quotes Daniel Kiš, saying that nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.”
Snyder constrasts this with a patriot, whose values are universal, “standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well — and wishing that it would do better.” The patriot wants, in contrast to the nationalist, wants people to be their best selves, and is concerned with the real world, “which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained.”
It is clear that Snyder’s definition of patriotism is deeper and richer than what my generation was taught in school. Indeed, coming of age during the Vietnam Era and the Watergate Era, the idea of patriotism as I’d been taught was exceedingly hollow. There was no classroom discussion critiquing American foreign policy or domestic the domestic transitions we were growing up in the midst of. That is, until my junior year of hight school, when I di have teachers who were not averse to bringing up thorny topics for discussion, but even these discussions were outside the text(book).
I believe we are experiencing, at the public level, among many, reorientation away from tribalism. Supporters of the occupier of the White House are coming to see that the person they voted for had only his own interests at heart. As I write shit, institutions are being and have been dismantled, the economy is surging to a recession, the rule of law and the Constitution are being challenged, universities are under attack, free speech is under attack, almost every sense of justice is under attack. People are being disappeared, a massive storm system has devastated large parts of the country and FEMA is not there to deliver necessary aid or help communities build back (and there is deafening silence from the legacy media in the United States itself on this; I’ve had to go the BBC and Al-Jazeera for what little I can find) and so on.
In spite of - or because of - all this, people are getting involved at the local level. Absent a unified resistance in the Senate, many are turning to local leadership and finding people from their community to run for office. Protests and demonstrations are gaining numbers (again, not particularly given much columns space in the media), and while there is much darkness surrounding us, democracy isn’t dead yet.
Democracy, as we have had it in the country, began as a movement from the people in reaction to gross malfeasance by a monarchy. We the people have, s number of times, marches, protested, and held out politicians accountable. We do not always do this in a timely manner or regularly enough. Complacency sets in or media- or politically- motivated cynicism corrupts the electorate rendered ignorant seemingly intentionally by leaders who devalue education for all.
Snyder conduces the chapter on a sobering note, recounting the times that democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and the danger in which it has found itself more recently, as well as in other parts of the world. It has been commonplace that too many people assume that the fall of the democratic order in the US “can’t happen here.” Snyder avers that a nationalist says that and disaster ensues. A nationalist is by nature, a fatalist; this is by design, since a nationalist is happy to play on the despair of others to gain advantage over them. “A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”
This is, I believe, where we are today. The road ahead is going to be fraught, not to say dangerous, as the regime continues its destruction of institutions, imperils the well-being of the citizenry, and alienates allies, isolating itself from the world but for growing closer to authoritarians.
Some will say that a popular revolt may find itself outgunned and crushed, but that is rather the point: reform doesn’t happen all at once. Strides forward may come; but there will be setbacks. In Chapter 13, Snyder showed how the Polish resistance to Communism was not an overnight success. Alliances and trust had to be built over a period of time; the same is true for us. We are fractured and fragmented, yes, but there is a sense of the wrong being perpetrated against us on a vast scale and adversity often breeds unity.
Being patriotic under these circumstances requires that sense of unity despite our individual differences and maintaining a disciplined focus on what unites us.
Bibliography
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny - Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Crown Publishing. New York. 2017..
I don’t have to add a lot here in terms of what we will likely be called on to do. You will read, again and again, how important it is to contact your reps, to volunteer your time, to march in protest, and to help where you can/as you can.
Two places to start with:
Mobilize at https://www.mobilize.us/. I have the landing page set to my area; populated with events, petitions, and volunteer opportunities, it’s practically one-stop shopping.
Indivisible at https://indivisible.org/ is another comprehensive hub. You can sign up for updates, download their guide to organizaing, find candidates to support, and more.
If you don't have a copy of "On Tyranny", you can purchase one here:
"On Tyranny" at Timothy Snyder's website where he lists several options. Support local bookstores and buy local or check it out from your local library.
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