Pledging Allegiance To The Human Race?

July 2nd, 2007 · 2 Comments · Main, National

A follow-up to my Flag Day post of June 15:

I am loath to label dissenters as America haters. After all, this nation was founded on dissent and I myself have objected to lots of my country’s actions over the years (e.g. most recently, Iraq).

But has Marxist historian Howard Zinn ever said anything good about his country? It’s hard to believe he flew combat missions for the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe from 1943-45.

Now as we approach July 4, Zinn says we should reject the flag and other symbols of nationalism — essentially because they stand for all the bad things the U.S. has done. Has the U.S. ever accomplished anything positive for itself or the world? If so, you would think the flag would stand for those things, too.

You see, Prof. Zinn, most Americans (and I count myself among the majority in this regard) don’t think saluting the flag, pledging allegiance to it or singing God Bless America is paying homage to only the bad, or as you would say, engaging in “self-deception.”

Take a lesson from the great unwashed. I and all the other simpletons out there without Ivy League Ph.Ds think we’re sometimes a force for good in this world. And we’re proud of it. From this agnostic to a Marxist: God Bless America for the good; Shame on us for the bad.

P.S. As for “pledging allegiance to the human race,” which Zinn says we all should do, what on earth does that mean? Using Zinn’s tender flag logic, pledging allegiance to the human race would mean praising only bad people like Stalin, Idi Amin and Jeffrey Dahmer. We wouldn’t want to do that, would we?

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2 responses so far ↓

1 Jenny // Jul 3, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Terry, there’s another way to look at Zinn’s essay. Bear with me while I make an analogy that may seem farfetched. I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books with my 8 year old. We started talking about the different houses in Hogwarts - Gryffindor, Slytherin, etc. and she asked me why they hated each other. I started reflecting on this tradition we have - dating back centuries, I suppose - of creating boundaries that separate “us” from “them.” From the earliest age, schools compete against each other, and kids learn to dislike or taunt those on other teams. It spreads to all areas of life - in social settings, I’ve been teased for what college I went to by people who went to “rival” colleges. Sports obviously perpetuates this, and I’d argue that nationalism is the obvious end-state of this attitude, that we’re all so trained in from birth. It goes by different names depending on the scale - chauvinism, prejudice - but it’s always about defining some group that some are “in” and others are “out” and thus, lesser, to be feared and hated. It’s tribalism, really - but in today’s world, when we have the ability to get to know the people in the neighboring tribe (or country) in a deep way and have meaningful conversations with people all over the world (our blogs being a good examples of this) from very different backgrounds, isn’t it time to put allegiance based on where you happen to have been born behind us forever?
2 Terry // Jul 4, 2007 at 7:38 am

Jenny,

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. You should have written that essay instead. Zinn is a cranky old man whose bitterness gets in the way of his ability to communicate his message.

My kids, too, are very fond of Potter, although they never asked that particular question about the rivalries. Most of the time I think competition makes people better, although (to be fair) sometimes it does bring out the worst in people, which is part of what you are getting at here.

I agree with you that chest-thumping and jingoism are not productive and I don’t engage in them; nor do I try to inculcate those attitudes in my children.

Bu animals (and people) are territorial by instinct and in most cases, that extends to “where you happen to have been born.” An allegiance to where we came from informs our present and encourages us to better ourselves and our nation.

America does have an ugly past (and a not-so-perfect present), but I hope I don’t sound provincial in saying I’d rather live here than any place else (including Canada, where I hung my hat for 5 years and could have stayed if I had wanted to).

Terry Cowgill

The View From Connecticut’s Northwest Corner