When I went on a road trip in The United States in the summer of 2019, I noticed a pattern around the fourth of July – from American flags on balconies to “Thank God I was born American” banners, American patriotism was everywhere.
A French vs American Approach to Patriotism
To any French citizen – or European for that matter – such uncurbed patriotism would be seen as a tad bit excessive. Nevertheless, the French have their own sense of national pride, evidenced most notably by the Bastille Day military parade, which inspired President Trump to create his own version of the parade in his 2019 “Salute to America”.
However, French and American patriotism have taken two very different routes. While both have typically been used to garner support for national upheavals or revolutions, the symbols used in the process have widely differed, as well as the final outcomes.
While the French will fervently defend their country to any foreigner, they are also quick to bring up and criticize its shortcomings amongst themselves, most notably in the form of protest.
The French have traditionally relied upon their patrimoine culturel or cultural heritage to instill a sense of national pride. From Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris to French Gastronomy to the French language itself, France – and especially Paris – has established itself as the epicenter of culture.
History – with a focus on the French revolution – has helped to solidify the “French identity”, taking up its roots in the democratic ideals born out of the country’s five republics. The secular education system beginning with Jules Ferry under the Third Republic helped to replace religious devotion with a sense of “belonging” to the nation, generating stout, secular young French citizens.
The United States – while also relying upon the education system as a means of instilling national pride – has tended to focus more on its Constitution, military successes, economic prosperity, technological innovation, and maybe even its films and music in doing so.
Criticism of the United States, however, has often been seen as “unpatriotic” or even “un-American”.
While an outsider might claim that both France and the United States appear rooted in patriotism, there nevertheless remains a fundamental difference between the two. While the French will fervently defend their country to any foreigner, they are also quick to bring up and criticize its shortcomings amongst themselves, most notably in the form of protest.
Criticism of France is widely normalized and often encouraged, seen as a way to stimulate debate and offer up national solutions. Criticism of the United States, however, has often been seen as “unpatriotic” or even “un-American”.
Understanding “Blind Patriotism” and “American Exceptionalism”
Such appears to be the result of a carefully crafted narrative of the “nation”, instilled through a school curriculum that places a heavy emphasis on US history and little on world or European history, let alone a single course on geography.
The reasoning behind such a curriculum is the still very prevalent belief that the United States is one of the “greatest countries in the world”, if not the greatest. Such “blind patriotism” – and in many cases, nationalism – has led some Americans to believe that they are superior merely by being born in the United States, furthering what is known as “American exceptionalism”.
Naturally, if a country is believed to be “the greatest” by its people, what could possibly be improved? The feeling of “American exceptionalism” coupled with a lack of criticism and a declining standard in secondary education – at least from an international perspective – has prevented many Americans from fully grasping the flaws of their country, as well as the solutions needed to address them.
The reasoning behind such a curriculum is the still very prevalent belief that the United States is one of the “greatest countries in the world”, if not the greatest.
Furthermore, anything that does not fall into this “national narrative” – or that could bring shame to the nation – is typically excluded from the public sphere. In particular, the role of minority groups has often been minimized throughout US history, a reality that many white Americans are beginning to wake up to.
Rituals such as the pledge of allegiance or the singing of the national anthem at sporting events help to reinforce this narrative, creating a system where not only are the majority of Americans grossly uninformed about the rest of the world, but many often offer unwavering support for whatever the United States should decide to do, including initiating foreign wars.
Foreign Interventions by the United States
Conditioned to believe that the United States has had a purely “philanthropic” role in history, many Americans perceive their country as the “watchdog” or “leader” of the free world. Although there are cases in which this has perhaps been true, in most it has not.
While most Americans might know about the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba or the Vietnam War, few are aware that the CIA had an active role in the Guatemalan Coup d’état of 1954 that replaced the democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz with the military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas.
In dismissing such examples of imperialism, the United States has produced its own version of stout, young citizens, yet ones who are incapable of reflecting on the state of their nation within the wider world.
There are countless other examples: from the United States’ “carpet bombing” of Cambodia to the CIA’s backing of dictator Auguste Pinochet in Chile to the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of which have been omitted from public school curriculums.
This one-sided narrative has prevented many Americans from recognizing the real weight of US history. In dismissing such examples of imperialism by omitting them from the public sphere, the United States has produced its own version of stout, young citizens, yet ones who are incapable of reflecting on the state of their nation within the wider world.
It would seem that only through inclusive education and a willingness to both understand and critique the choices of the United States can Americans end “blind patriotism” and genuinely begin to mend their fractured nation.