Patriotism

As Maurizio Viroli notes, patriotism (love of country) and nationalism (loyalty to one's nation) are often taken to be synonymous. Indeed, for writers such as Ernest Geller, nationalism constitutes a distinctive expression of patriotism. Yet the origin of the concept can be traced back to the notion of patria in Greek and especially Roman antiquity, which links patriotism with the preservation of res publica and the protection of common liberty. It is only with the rise of nationalism in the 19th century that patriotism becomes associated with the exclusive attachment to a prepolitical, homogeneous, national community. Because of this association, patriotism has been frequently regarded as incompatible with a typically liberal commitment to universal human rights. However, recent scholarship has sought to disassociate patriotism from nationalism by emphasizing new forms of loyalty compatible with universal values, respect for human rights, and tolerance of ethnic and national differences, giving rise to concepts such as constitutional or cosmopolitan patriotism as well as contemporary restatements of the classical republican tradition.

Greek and especially Roman antiquity provide the roots for a political patriotism that conceives of political loyalty to the patria as loyalty to a political conception of the republic and is associated with the love of law and common liberty, the search for the common good, and the duty to behave justly toward one's country. This classical Roman meaning of patria reemerges in the context of the Italian city republics of the 15th century. Here, patria stands for the common liberty of the [Page 1833]city, which can only be safeguarded by the citizens' civic spirit. For Niccolò Machiavelli, the love of common liberty enables citizens to see their private and particular interests as part of the common good and helps them to resist corruption and tyranny and, if necessary, to fight to protect and preserve the political community. While this love of the city is typically intermixed with pride in her military strength and cultural superiority, it is the political institutions and way of life of the city that form the distinctive focal point of this kind of patriotic attachment. To love the city is to be willing to sacrifice one's own good—including one's life and, if need be, one's soul—for the protection of common liberty.

In contrast to the classical republican conception of patriotism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “Considerations on the Government of Poland” can be seen as an early example of the link between nationalism and patriotism. Yet while Rousseau advocates the love of the nation and the celebration of national culture, he believes that national culture is valuable primarily because it helps foster loyalty to the political fatherland. Thus, Rousseau's nationalism stems from and serves his typically republican emphasis on securing citizens' loyalty to their political institutions. A more explicit link between nationalism and patriotism can be found in the work of Johann Gottfried Herder. In Herder's work, patriotism refers not to a political virtue but to a spiritual attachment to the nation. In this context, fatherland becomes synonymous with the nation and its distinct language and culture, which give it unity and coherence. Thus, instead of linking patriotism to the preservation of political liberty, Herder associates love of one's country with the preservation of a common culture and the spiritual unity of a people. While in the classical republican tradition, “fatherland” is synonymous with political institutions, for Herder, the nation is prepolitical and love of one's national culture is a natural inclination that allows a people to express their distinctive character. On this account, patriotism is associated with the exclusive attachment to one's own culture and thus stands in opposition to cosmopolitanism and cultural assimilation. Freedom is equated not with the fight against political oppression but with the preservation of a unique people and patriotic sacrifice with the desire to secure the long-term survival of the nation.

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