I wanted to comment on James Fallows’s most recent article at Atlantic because to my eye it exemplifies something I see pretty commonly. When you find a house that doesn’t completely meet your expectations or needs you might say “it has potential” but you wouldn’t say “I love it; let’s tear it down.”
But that’s very much what Mr. Fallows says in his piece, “The Reinvention of America”:
My own form of American nationalism, intensified both by living outside the country and by travels within it, arises from love of the American idea: inclusion, expansiveness, opportunity, mobility, the open-ended struggle to make the nation a better version of itself. After living in Japan during its amaze-the-world era of the 1980s, I wrote a book arguing that the proper U.S. response was not to try to be more like Japan but instead to be “more like usâ€â€”which was the book’s title. (Its subtitle was Making America Great Again. Sigh.)
I believe that’s a trope used by people who don’t really care for America much but are very much taken by the idea of what it might become with the proper guidance. Their guidance, of course.
I think that’s fatuous and facile. They just don’t have the courage to say that they don’t like America. The problems with the construction are that it’s counter-experiential and it’s unrealistic.
That it is counter-experiential is practically self-evident. As a little experiment try it on your wife. “I love you because of what you might become.” Looking into my crystal ball, I see divorce in your future. At the very least marriage counseling. When you love your wife when she wakes up in the morning, when she’s getting ready for work, when she putters around the house, and when she comes home tired after a long day at work, that’s love. When you love her only when she’s all dolled up for a night on the town, you love yourself or, at the most, your idea of her. It would be just about as effective in speaking with your kids or your friends.
If you love broccoli, you love it raw, steamed, roasted or just about any other way. When you love it when it’s been braised in butter, cream, and cheese, doesn’t that really mean you love butter, cream, and cheese? Or maybe just good cooking?
It’s unrealistic because America will never live up to your expectations for a simple reason: not everyone shares your vision and everybody else is pulling in their own directions. The future will always fall short. For every part of the “American idea” of which you approve (“inclusion, expansiveness, etc.”), there is its opposite and they’re all just as much a part of the idea as those parts of which you approve. You can find those qualities in France, Germany, or Uganda, too. If he hasn’t found those qualities anywhere else in his travels, I don’t think he’s traveled nearly enough. There are limits to what you can learn of a country from the bar of the InterCon.
I prefer by far the formulation of the Armenian poet: I love my country because it is mine.
I kind of agree, but I think there’s another argument.
What if you loved your wife for years, but over time it became harder and harder as she changed for the worse. She became irresponsible with the family budget, running up debts which threaten your family with eviction from your home. She stopped pulling her weight in other family responsibilties, putting the burden on you. She regularly goes out on the town and engages in activities she knows you disapprove of. Your love is, at this point, taken for granted at best and is completely unrequited at worst.
So, I think, in some sense, it’s got to be a two way street. I love America but I do want it to become better. I think it’s heading down the wrong path and I want to correct that. I don’t think it’s wrong to feel that way.
I also think goals and process must be distinguished. Everyone wil have goals – the vision or things they’d like America to be to make it better. It’s the process to achieve that where problems occur. Too many are willing to not only force their preferences on others, but do so in a way that deliberately turns the screws. That method doesn’t work in a marriage or for our country.
That’s called “falling out of love”. You used to love your wife but no longer do.
There’s no conflict between loving your country and wanting it to improve. Indeed, they go hand in hand. But if you don’t love your country for its past and present but only for its future, that’s a pretty feeble soft of thing. Basically, you’re just waiting until a better country comes along.
I don’t know if I agree with the comparison between love of country and love in a personal relationship, but I guess it can be useful as far as it goes.
In both cases I’m reminded of the adage that love is an attitude (or action), not a feeling. So in Andy’s marriage hypothetical, a spouse in that situation would recognize that his love for his wife means also accepting her flaws and noticing at the outset of her declining behavior that something is amiss. As a good partner he can try to help her correct these things rather than allowing them to erode his “love” for her. And by “help her correct” I’m not talking about criticism but rather a loving attitude that accepts that she is trying to fulfill needs that aren’t being met and figuring out how he can better meet them so that she doesn’t keep withdrawing further from their partnership.
With love of country there is no partner to love you back, but when your vision of country is being challenged because others either have a different vision or no vision at all it’s also incumbent on you to try to understand why and reconcile those differences with your own vision.
Hmmmm. I kind of think, at the risk of sounding sexist, that men marry women hoping they will never change, but they do. Women marry men fully expecting that they will change, and that they will help them change into what they want, but it seldom works. The marriages that work accept change.
Just a bit of tack, but as a rule I don’t believe politicians who say they love America. I think that they love the parts of America that believe the same things they believe. or the parts that vote for them. There are exceptions but how many conservatives really love California and how many liberals really love Texas?
Steve
Mr. Fallows is yet another poor soul who believes in the fallacy of perfectibility. Too many people like him forget that to err is human, and that society, and government is made up of humans. He will never love America because America will never become what he thinks it ought to be.