Civics Class

I mentioned the other day that, in eighth grade social studies, we learned the terms "log-rolling" and "back-patting," from a teacher who also required us to know the members of the Supreme Court and of the President's Cabinet, and, in the latter case, what their departments were charged with.

It's become a regular luncheon-speaker horror story that far more Americans can name (take your choice) the Seven Dwarfs, Santa's reindeer or the Simpson family members than the Supreme Court Justices, and my guess is that far more people remember that there was a little cartoon about "How a Bill Becomes a Law" than can actually describe the process, or even quote the singy-songy text of that cartoon.

Now comes Jen Sorensen with an absolutely critical Civics Lesson on the difference between "patriotism" and "nationalism" and she's completely right and this, too, was in our junior high social studies curriculum, though I hesitate to say it's something "we learned" since so many of my generation obviously didn't.

But we were told, if not effectively taught, the difference, as well as other terms for disordered pride, including "jingoism" and "chauvinism" the latter of which, in those days, was not confined to sexual politics.

I don't know that kids get any lessons in civics anymore, but, as noted, it's obviously a bit futile anyway, since the nationalists, jingos and chauvinists define patriotism as "My country, right or wrong," while, as GK Chesterton wrote, blind love of country is as off-target and wrong-headed as any sort of blindly celebratory love:

'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.' No doubt if a decent man's mother took to drink he would share her troubles to the last; but to talk as if he would be in a state of gay indifference as to whether his mother took to drink or not is certainly not the language of men who know the great mystery.

Anyway, here we are and I think it's safe to suspect that Sorensen and Chesterton are both preaching to the converted while the people who need to hear and listen and learn don't have to stick their fingers in their ears because they are utterly deaf to reason from the start.

It has nothing to do with politics in the first place but, rather, with a desperate need to belong, which also explains people who can proudly proclaim themselves "Christian" but ignore vulgarity, racism and hatred in the people who proudly share that claim, and that's aside from the comparatively subtle point that Pride and Religious Belief are philosophically incompatible despite how often and tragically they have been allied in wars and pogroms.

The flag on the back of a car may claim pride in country but it's really just pride in having a group to belong to, and is often accompanied by stickers proclaiming pride in owning a Chevy and pride in supporting the Red Sox and even pride in going to Dunkin Donuts, all of which add up to pride in having a sticker and, as Phil Ochs wrote, 

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find a flag so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is too young to die

Which brings us to our

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Rob Rogers)

(Jason Chatfield)

Rogers manages not only to work in the famous but futile defense at Nuremberg, "I was just following orders," but also riffs on "Hitler's Willing Executioners," the title of a book which disproved the claim "We didn't know."

Eisenhower demanded that German civilians tour the camps and see with their own eyes what had been done, so that nobody could ever claim they didn't know or that it hadn't really happened, and you would honestly think the idea would work.

But we see that it hasn't, both in the fact that Holocaust deniers exist and in the fact that people are willing to support the same blind nationalism that made it happen the last time, all the while waving their flags and proclaiming their love of country.

And if Jason Chatfield finds that the Joke writes Himself, there's only the most grim of gallows humor in realizing that this was not a one-off bizarre moment, but an established style, and in recognizing how many tone-deaf jingos will cheer for a man who stands before them and declares

I have broken more Elton John records. He seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No, we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look, I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really, we do it without, like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical – the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth, right? The brain. More important than the mouth is the brain. The brain is much more important.

Hopefully, the brain attached to the mouth, yes. But even Section Four of the 25th Amendment doesn't require it, unless specific government officials do, and they clearly don't. 

Now, it's true that, while Germany was rounding up Jews, we were rounding up Japanese Americans, but let's be fair: We didn't mark them for death.

On the other hand, to cite Darrin Bell's cartoon and the absolutely despicable policy of the Trump administration, every horror begins somewhere, and we did begin by kicking Japanese-Americans out of the army.

However, back then, we were not incapable of learning, and of, however haltingly, correcting our mistakes and letting people prove themselves:

November 8, we will find out if Americans can learn to recognize the difference between "patriotism" and "nationalism."

Comments

[Kip W]

I always remember my dismay when I found the Dr. Seuss cartoon in PM where all the Japanese men in the US are being given their bomb and instructions. Et Tu, Dr. S? The insanity ran deep.

[Brad Walker]

Drew Carey did a (very short) parody (which I can't find on YouTube):

KID: How does a bill become a Law,
How does it become a Law?

BILL: Well, a rich white guy pays a lobbyist,
A lobbyist pays a Congressman,
The End.