Patriotism is the one of these lowest vices which most often

masquerades in false garb as a virtue. But what after all IS

patriotism? "My country, right or wrong, and just because it is my

country!" This is clearly nothing more than collective selfishness.

Often enough, indeed, it is not even collective. It means merely,

"MY business-interests against the business-interests of other

people, and let the taxes of my fellow-citizens pay to support

them." At other times it means pure pride of race, and pure lust of

conquest; "MY country against other countries; MY army and navy

against other fighters; MY right to annex unoccupied territory

against the equal right of all other peoples; MY power to oppress

all weaker nationalities, all inferior races." It NEVER means or

can mean anything good or true. For if a cause be just, like

Ireland's, or once Italy's, then 'tis a good man's duty to espouse

it with warmth, be it his own or another's. And if a cause be bad,

then 'tis a good man's duty to oppose it, tooth and nail,

irrespective of your patriotism. True, a good man will feel more

sensitively anxious that strict justice should be done by the

particular community of which chance has made him a component member

than by any others; but then, people who feel acutely this joint

responsibility of all the citizens to uphold the moral right are not

praised as patriots but reviled as unpatriotic. To urge that our

own country should strive with all its might to be better, higher,

purer, nobler, more generous than other countries,--the only kind of

patriotism worth a moment's thought in a righteous man's eyes, is

accounted by most men both wicked and foolish.

Then comes the monopolist instinct of property. That, on the face

of it, is a baser and more sordid one. For patriotism at least can

lay claim to some sort of delusive expansiveness beyond mere

individual interest; whereas property stops short at the narrowest

limits of personality. It is no longer "Us against the world!" but

"Me against my fellow-citizens!" It is the last word of the

intercivic war in its most hideous avatar. Look how it scars the

fair face of our common country with its antisocial notice-boards,

"Trespassers will be prosecuted." It says in effect, "This is my

land. As I believe, God made it; but I have acquired it, and

tabooed it to myself, for my own enjoyment. The grass on the wold

grows green; but only for me. The mountains rise glorious in the

morning sun; no foot of man, save mine and my gillies' shall tread

them. The waterfalls leap white from the ledge in the glen; avaunt

there, non-possessors; your eye shall never see them. For you the

muddy street; for me, miles of upland. All this is my own. And I

choose to monopolize it."




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