Patriotism and Love

            Stephen Nathanson in the texts “The Conflict of Patriotism and Morality” and “Can We Judge Our Country” criticizes patriotism with Tolstoy’s ideas and then, he starts to defend moderate patriotism. He tries to show that there is moderate patriotism that is compatible with morality, which is against Tolstoy’s theory.  Tolstoy believes that patriotism is originated by government, it conflicts with morality and it leads to war. However, Tolstoy’s ideas of patriotism are prejudice and misconception of patriotism because patriotism is a natural feeling of humanity and he confuses militarism with aggressive patriotism.

            In the text written by Stephen Nathanson, Tolstoy says that “patriots aim at benefiting their own country or nation at the expense of every other.”(Nathanson, 65) Also he describes patriotism as “the exclusive desire for the well-being of one’s own people.”(65) Tolstoy thinks patriotism requires behaving our own fellow citizens preferentially and it encourages people to dominate over others therefore patriotism and morality can be conflicted because morality is based on equality (65). He says that patriotism is against the Golden Rule which says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” because patriotism underestimates people of other countries and excludes them (65). He states that patriotism is produced by government because the maintenance of their both power and existence depends upon patriotism (66). He also claims that patriotism is the root of war. He demonstrates two ways for this. The first way is that the aggressive side of patriotism causes war (68). To understand where this aggressiveness comes from, recall Tolstoy’s description that “patriotism is benefiting your own country in the expense of others.”(65). The second way is that patriotism leads to war because of the connection between patriotism and ruthlessness and this connection is originated from the thought of exclusiveness of patriotism which is again a Tolstoy’s claim (68). As a result, Tolstoy rejects patriotism completely and he recommends patriotism must be removed.

            Love is the ultimate need and desire of all human beings. Love of country, namely patriotism is a kind of love which also supposed to be the fundamental need and desire. This feeling is a part of human nature and it comes from our birth (Nathanson 66). It means how one loves one’s mother or friends unconsciously, one loves one’s country unconsciously, too. One may aim at benefiting your friends, but it doesn’t require the expense of any other, dominance over others, excluding or underestimating others at all. Besides, if patriotism, loyalty to one’s country is as problematic as Tolstoy says, people also need to stop being loyal to our beloveds. However, it makes no sense (67). Thus, Tolstoy’s definition of patriotism and his explanations about patriotism fail.
            Tolstoy believes that governments and ruling classes deceive and encourage people to support patriotism since their both power and existence depend on patriotism (Nathanson 66).  Nevertheless, as mentioned above, patriotism is a love of country and by the characteristic of love, it is a natural feeling and it can not be produced by anyone, it is also not that simple. If we scrutinize governments in history or recent times, we can see some examples that some governments are against patriotism. For example, when last rulers in Ottoman Empire, who were anti-patriots, were in cooperation with the enemy, the country was saved by patriots such as the group called as “Kuvvai Milliye”. On the other hand, why do people believe these governments which deceive them for government’s own benefits (66)? Actually, people can’t agree with Tolstoy unless all these people are fools. Consequently, because of these causes, Tolstoy’s thoughts are extremely unacceptable.

            Tolstoy’s another most crucial criticism of patriotism is that it leads to war. According to Tolstoy, the only way to prevent war is to remove patriotism. Nathanson, in the part of Militarism of his text, states that when the popular image of patriotism may require support for a war but the moderate patriotism if it is true love, certainly doesn’t require (Nathanson 72). However, at the war time, when it is unavoidable, the defense of people’s lives is necessary and even valuable (72). If we remove patriotism like Tolstoy says and if there are no any patriots, who will defend the country at the war time?  Therefore, patriotism is also necessary besides it is a natural feeling.              There is another point that makes Tolstoy wrong about his thesis that the only way to prevent war is to remove patriotism. Tolstoy’s this thesis implies that patriotism is the only reason of war but this is not the case in fact. There are a lot of reasons of war such as money, land, energy sources etc. For instance, the reason of occupation of Iraq by the USA can be petrol or something else but not patriotism. All these information given above prove that Tolstoy confuses militarism and aggressive patriotism and hiss this thesis is quite mistaken.

            In the militarized image of patriotism, people are patriots or traitors like friends and foes (72). This view shows patriotism as a duty and it shows non-patriots as traitors. However, patriotism is not a duty since it is love of country (73).  People might have different feelings so people are free to love their country or they can love other countries and it doesn’t mean they are traitors because they can even be better citizens than patriots (72). Semper Fi, about patriotism, said that “Patriotism is not a duty, a belief, nor is it an anachronism. It is a way of life to be led with honor.” Therefore, patriotism is beyond the call of duty, it is a special concern for the welfare of one’s country and it is compatible with moral values.

            In conclusion, when Tolstoy says patriotism conflicts with moral values, it is produced by ruling classes, it leads to war and thus it must be rooted out, Stephen Nathanson states that there is a moderate patriotism which is preference for one’s nation or country within the limits of morality, it is a natural feeling comes from birth, so it is not produced by rulers and it doesn’t cause war. If there were not the moderate patriotism like Nathanson said, Tolstoy would have been right. However, patriotism is love of country and the moderate patriotism is compatible with true love unlike the patriotism which Tolstoy described. As a consequence of this, we can say that Tolstoy’s claims are not convincing.