As Regards Patriotism
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Mark Twain's autobiography. Mark Twain responded strongly to world events, especially concerning imperialism. He had become a confirmed determinist, convinced that human beings lack moral agency. I disagree with Twain on this issue but do believe that probably more humans fit in that category as do not.
In "As Regards Patriotism" we see Twain struggling to understand how citizens of a republic can substitute "patriotism" for reasoned judgment. This work was compose about 1901 but was not published in Twains lifetime. Many of Twains works were just too outside the mainstream for publication at the time he created them.
“It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that if perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent upon him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not.
In Austria and some other countries this is not the case. There the State arranges a man’s religion for him, he has no voice in it himself.
Patriotism is merely a religion – love of country, worship of country, devotion to the country’s flag and honor and welfare.
In absolute monarchies it is furnished from the Throne, cut and dried, to the subject; in England and America it is furnished, cut and dried, to the citizen by the politician and the newspaper.
The newspaper-and-politician-manufactured Patriot often gags in private over his dose; but he takes it, and keeps it on his stomach the best he can. Blessed are the meek.
Sometimes, in the beginning of an insane and shabby political upheaval, he is strongly moved to revolt, but he doesn’t do it – he knows better. He knows that his maker would find it out – the maker of his Patriotism, the windy and incoherent six-dollar sub-editor of his village newspaper – and would bray out in print and call him a Traitor. And how dreadful that would be. It makes him tuck his tail between his legs and shiver. We all know – the reader knows it quite well – that two or three years ago nine-tenths of the human tails in England and America performed just that act. Which is to say, nine-tenths of the Patriots in England and America turned Traitor to keep from being called Traitor. Isn’t it true? You know it to be true. Isn’t it curious?
Yet it was not a thing to be very seriously ashamed of. A man can seldom – very seldom – fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy. For many a year – perhaps always – the training of the two nations had been dead against independence in political thought, persistently inhospitable toward Patriotism manufactured on a man’s own premises, Patriotism reasoned out in the man’s own head and fire-assayed and tested and proved in his own conscience. The resulting Patriotism was a shop-worn product procured at second hand. The Patriot did not know just how or when or where he got his opinions, neither did he care, so long as he was with seemed the majority – which was the main thing, the safe thing, the comfortable thing. Does the reader believe he knows three men who have actual reasons for their pattern of Patriotism – and can furnish them? Let him not examine, unless he wants to be disappointed. He will be likely to find that his men go their Patriotism at the public trough, and had no hand in their preparation themselves.
Training does wonderful things. It moved the people of this country to oppose the Mexican war; then moved them to fall in with what they supposed was the opinion of the majority – majority-Patriotism is the customary Patriotism – and go down there and fight. Before the Civil War it made the North indifferent to slavery and friendly to the slave interest; in that interest it made Massachusetts hostile to the other way, and she went raging South to fight under that very flag and against that foretime protected-interest of hers.
Training made us nobly anxious to free Cuba; training made us give her a noble promise; training has enabled us to take it back. Long training made us revolt at the idea of wantonly taking any weak nation’s country and liberties away from it, a short training made us glad to do it, and proud of having done it. Training made us loathe Weyler’s cruel concentration camps, training has persuaded us to prefer them to any other device for winning the love of our “wards.”
There is nothing that training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or below it. It can turn bad morals to good, good morals to bad; it can destroy principles, it can re-create them; it can debase angels to men and lift men to angelship. And it can do any of these miracles in a year – even in six months.
Then men can be trained to manufacture their own Patriotism. They can be trained to labor it out in their own heads and hearts and in the privacy and independence of their own premises. It can train them to stop taking it by command, as the Austrian takes his religion.”
Just a guess, but I'm willing to bet Mark Twain would've joined us in this event, in response to this event.
"So what?" would be the reply from some, some that no doubt would revere Twain if they had not studied his work thoroughly, only to see that they themselves might be the very product of which he often wrote about. ,
In "As Regards Patriotism" we see Twain struggling to understand how citizens of a republic can substitute "patriotism" for reasoned judgment. This work was compose about 1901 but was not published in Twains lifetime. Many of Twains works were just too outside the mainstream for publication at the time he created them.
“It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that if perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent upon him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not.
In Austria and some other countries this is not the case. There the State arranges a man’s religion for him, he has no voice in it himself.
Patriotism is merely a religion – love of country, worship of country, devotion to the country’s flag and honor and welfare.
In absolute monarchies it is furnished from the Throne, cut and dried, to the subject; in England and America it is furnished, cut and dried, to the citizen by the politician and the newspaper.
The newspaper-and-politician-manufactured Patriot often gags in private over his dose; but he takes it, and keeps it on his stomach the best he can. Blessed are the meek.
Sometimes, in the beginning of an insane and shabby political upheaval, he is strongly moved to revolt, but he doesn’t do it – he knows better. He knows that his maker would find it out – the maker of his Patriotism, the windy and incoherent six-dollar sub-editor of his village newspaper – and would bray out in print and call him a Traitor. And how dreadful that would be. It makes him tuck his tail between his legs and shiver. We all know – the reader knows it quite well – that two or three years ago nine-tenths of the human tails in England and America performed just that act. Which is to say, nine-tenths of the Patriots in England and America turned Traitor to keep from being called Traitor. Isn’t it true? You know it to be true. Isn’t it curious?
Yet it was not a thing to be very seriously ashamed of. A man can seldom – very seldom – fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy. For many a year – perhaps always – the training of the two nations had been dead against independence in political thought, persistently inhospitable toward Patriotism manufactured on a man’s own premises, Patriotism reasoned out in the man’s own head and fire-assayed and tested and proved in his own conscience. The resulting Patriotism was a shop-worn product procured at second hand. The Patriot did not know just how or when or where he got his opinions, neither did he care, so long as he was with seemed the majority – which was the main thing, the safe thing, the comfortable thing. Does the reader believe he knows three men who have actual reasons for their pattern of Patriotism – and can furnish them? Let him not examine, unless he wants to be disappointed. He will be likely to find that his men go their Patriotism at the public trough, and had no hand in their preparation themselves.
Training does wonderful things. It moved the people of this country to oppose the Mexican war; then moved them to fall in with what they supposed was the opinion of the majority – majority-Patriotism is the customary Patriotism – and go down there and fight. Before the Civil War it made the North indifferent to slavery and friendly to the slave interest; in that interest it made Massachusetts hostile to the other way, and she went raging South to fight under that very flag and against that foretime protected-interest of hers.
Training made us nobly anxious to free Cuba; training made us give her a noble promise; training has enabled us to take it back. Long training made us revolt at the idea of wantonly taking any weak nation’s country and liberties away from it, a short training made us glad to do it, and proud of having done it. Training made us loathe Weyler’s cruel concentration camps, training has persuaded us to prefer them to any other device for winning the love of our “wards.”
There is nothing that training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or below it. It can turn bad morals to good, good morals to bad; it can destroy principles, it can re-create them; it can debase angels to men and lift men to angelship. And it can do any of these miracles in a year – even in six months.
Then men can be trained to manufacture their own Patriotism. They can be trained to labor it out in their own heads and hearts and in the privacy and independence of their own premises. It can train them to stop taking it by command, as the Austrian takes his religion.”
Just a guess, but I'm willing to bet Mark Twain would've joined us in this event, in response to this event.
"So what?" would be the reply from some, some that no doubt would revere Twain if they had not studied his work thoroughly, only to see that they themselves might be the very product of which he often wrote about. ,
posted by Redjalapeno at Friday, January 20, 2006
3 Opinions:
Mark Twain was a man who was ahead of his time. It's understandable (because his modern thinking) that some of his stuff was not made available while he was still living. Too many great writers were treated in such a manner. I believe Orwell also didn't get as much deserved fame until after his death.
Excellent post, RJ. I would highly recommend the book by Sam Harris "The End of Faith": http://www.samharris.org/
But, fair warning, he is pretty brutal on religion. As Twain says, though, Patriotism and Religion are peas in a pod.
OWL, that is one of the things that I have come to learn about Twain as I study his works: much of his writings were considered too controversial for the day. That just fascinates me.
Hindsight is 20/20 in a collective sense?
Doc, thanks for that link. My spouting off about Twain at the office, (THE tobacco farm of the world - PM), generated some heated discussions on the relationship between Patriotism and Religion. As an atheist, I used to be more tolerate in thought and how I verbalized my view of religion. As I grow older and wiser, so to speak, my tolerance is diminishing greatly.
The things people do in the name of god - the world over - in the history of man - is disappointing to say the least.
Post a Comment
<< Home