A Proper Patriotism

Patriotism has, then, many faces. Those who would reject it entirely do not seem to have considered what will certainly step–has already begun to step–into its place. For a long time yet, or perhaps forever, nations will live in danger. Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least to prepare for their defence. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only be presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for “their country” they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice, or civilisation, or humanity. This is a step down, not up. . . . Good men needed to to be convinced that their country’s cause was just; but it was still their country’s cause, not the cause of justice as such. . . . . If our country’s cause is the cause of God, wars must be wars of annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world.

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The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1988), 29.