War, Peace, and Education

Can we Redefine Patriotism and

Reduce its Identification with War?

LEROYS VALDÉS
European University of the Atlantic

Public education is perhaps among the most politicized pieces in a nation’s

structure. Whenever a new political group assumes the power, there is an urgent
need to rebuild the country’s educational programme by fostering their own values
and instilling their ideology. Without any doubt, patriotism is part of those
ideologically biased aspects for which every group has its own definition and
understanding. As a result, this clash of ideologies creates major differences in
education outcomes that build the set of values and beliefs of our society. In this
essay, I describe the two different manifestations of patriotism and discuss
whether it is possible for the educational curriculum to redefine it and reduce its
identification with war. To do so, some of the theoretical foundations presented
by Joel Westheimer in his article Politics and Patriotism in Education will be taken
into consideration.

Patriotism has been ingrained into the American educational program since
the late 1990s. Since then, however, they have been trying to come up with a
good definition, now that there are two big trends of opinions and ideas. One of
the most popular definitions was brought by Stephen Nathanson (as cited in
Primoratz, 2017), who defines patriotism as involving: “special affection for one’s
own country, a sense of personal identification with the country, special concern
for the well-being of the country, and willingness to sacrifice to promote the
country’s good”. According to these features we could say, then, that patriotism
is used to “describe many attitudes, beliefs, and actions” (Westheimer, 2016) that
define a certain kind of man: the patriot. But this set of features does not seem
to comply with all types of patriotism. Westheimer (2006) explains the two
different types of patriotism: authoritarian patriotism and democratic patriotism.

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Authoritarian patriotism “is a resigning of one’s will, right of choice, and

need to understand to the authority; its emotional base is gratitude for having
been liberated from burden democratic responsibility” (Westheimer, 2006). Based
on this definition, we can hear some sympathizers to certain political positions
saying things like “my country, right or wrong” by Stephen Decatur. One of the
cons of this type of patriotism, in my good opinion, is that it allows the government
to take actions without being questioned. For the past decades, some of those
actions have been related to war, and the type of phrases like “my country, right
or wrong” is what makes mankind blind. In addition, the measures taken at
schools sound like indoctrination to me. In his article, Westheimer mentions that
some teachers or students who question the government are punished. For
example, even a U.S. veteran who fought in the war in Afghanistan and who
thought that it was illegal, still always supports his nation: “I’m an American
citizen and I voted for this democracy, so it felt to me that I needed to participate
in whatever it was the country was doing - right or wrong” (Shaddad, 2017).

In contrast, democratic patriotism means “being true and loyal –– not to

the government, but to the principles which underlie democracy” (Westheimer,
2006). In other words, sympathizers with this idea can question the government
and will interpose their critical thinking capacity to judge morally the nation,
although they usually support their country. We can say, then, that this type of
patriotism holds a more philosophical approach on which individuals are entrusted
to think of themselves and judge the nation’s acts. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
summarizes this idea by saying that patriotism “is supporting your country all the
time, and your government when it deserves it”.

Of course, these two currents were defined in a very specific context and
by very specific people: in the United States by Americans. Therefore, it is not
surprising that any type of patriotism might be rejected in other countries. For
example, supporting patriotism in Spain might be seen as being a fascist, due to
the historical events and situations attributed to the right-wing political party. “The
clearest case of this situation in the recent history of this country was the patriotic
military coup in 1936 (supported by the forces of German Nazism and Italian
Fascism, without whose help this coup d'état would not have been successful) that

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interrupted the Spanish democracy, present in the Second Republic” (Navarro,

2016).

Given this disparity of patriotisms, can we redefine it and reduce its

identification with war at schools? The answer to the first part of this question, to
me, would be a resounding no for the case of the United States as well as for
Spain. Patriotism holds a set of cultural values that will be linked to specific
historical and present events in different societies. Regarding the second part of
the question, I would say that while authoritarian patriotism policies punish
teachers and students, it is still difficult to separate patriotism and its identification
with war. In the educational terms, this means that patriotism should be presented
as a democratic term, where individuals are allowed to question the government
and also learn to live in the so-called melting pot.

References

Navarro, V. (2016, June 14). ¿Qué es patriotismo y qué es España?

Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://blogs.publico.es/vicenc-

navarro/2016/06/14/que-es-el-patriotismo-en-espana/

Primoratz, I. (2017). Patriotism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford

Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017). Metaphysics Research Lab,

Stanford University. Retrieved from

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/patriotism/

Shaddad, R. (2017). US veteran: Remnants of an “unnecessary war.”

Retrieved from

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/11/veteran-remnants-

unnecessary-war-171111210101769.html

Westheimer, J. (2006). Politics and Patriotism in Education. Phi Delta

Kappan, 87(8), 608–620.

https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170608700817