As an international student from the United Arab Emirates (rather, an Indian citizen brought up in the UAE away from his motherland) and a born-and-raised Midwesterner, we have different experiences with the concept of ‘patriotism.' Yet, we both see love for country the same way — as a means of advocating for progress and change, not an excuse or justification to maintain antiquated laws and social norms. As to how to solve the undeniable problem of the general erosion of patriotic sentiment in this country, how to inculcate
patriotism in rising generations of Americans, how to reconcile a vigorous conception of assimilation with the pluralism to which we are so deeply committed — those are other matters, and very grave concerns indeed.
We need to make people aware of the historic precondition of patriotism in the replacement of the social community by the illusory community, in the capture of our cooperative existence by a ruling economic class that tricks us into supporting their agenda by disguising their particular interest as the national interest and sets one of their own up as the High Priest for interpreting what that means.
Levels of patriotism vary across time, and among political communities. They insisted that in a diverse society with many people who had been born in other countries, citizens should pledge allegiance not to "my flag" but to the "flag of the United States of America," a change that Congress formally recognized in 1942.
This kind of soft power" should generate a demand in other people's minds for something you want to have." (Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 67, 70.) However, the demand is created only partly by the American government.
As the boat began to sink into the cold waters of the Atlantic, four American chaplains on board helped other soldiers board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out. Today 99% of Americans know that they can enjoy all of the freedoms of living in America without ever being in 'harms way' for one second.
Turning to Günter Grass's novel, Im Krebsgang (2002) and W.G. Sebald's essay on the postwar German literary response to the Anglo-American bombing of German cities, Luftkrieg und Literatur (2001, appearing in English in 2003 under the title, The Natural History of Destruction), Pirro shows the correlation between notions of victimhood and impulses of post-unification German culture.
12 The final scene is a fine example of translating notions of American patriotism into a glossy visual style. Simple but poignant acts of American patriotism occur every day. Surprisingly, no. Nationalism has its uses as a very strong motivator for uniting people together in the struggle against injustice.