Critical Patriotism

Our responsibility to critical thought complicates simple-minded notions of loyalty and patriotism. The “classics” of Western thought persist as touchstones of self-reflection and reason.

By J. Peter Euben

The irony, of course, is that many of the canonical figures and texts that constitute “Western” civilization speak against the use being made of them by ACTA. Such didactic readings by those intent on using these texts to legitimate a political agenda, even as they accuse their opponents of politicizing the university, deepen the irony. They also remind us that the Culture Wars did not, unfortunately, implode on their own hyperbole of war and battles or collapse under the weight of stilted posturings.

The claim that patriotism requires unconditional and uncritical support of “America” and its policies is not seen by ACTA as a political demand. What it sees as political is the stance taken by those it defines as “ideologically driven intellectuals,” who cannot bring themselves, even in a time of national mourning and crisis, to support the nation and the civilization that makes their existence possible. ACTA believes that Political Correctness has again driven them into a knee-jerk sympathy with America’s enemies or, less stridently, to an equivocal identification with their fellow citizens.

Yet the critical patriotism of many of these intellectuals has a long and distinguished pedigree, both in America and in the Western intellectual tradition. No figure has loomed larger in that tradition than the Greek philosopher Socrates. And no dialogues about him have loomed larger than the Apology and Crito written by Plato. They are about patriotism and loyalty and the necessity of critical thought to both.

Socrates did philosophy in the streets. In his hands, it was not what it later became, an academic subject written in a specialized language that only a few can understand. He lived his life asking questions of anyone willing to engage him in conversation. But the conversations he valued most were those with his fellow citizens, since the kind of people they were and might be determined the kind of world he and his children would live in. Among his fellow citizens, he was most anxious to question those with political and cultural power.

When he questioned them, he discovered that they did not know what they thought they knew. Naturally enough, they were not thrilled by this public exposure and many, perhaps the Athenian Council of Trustees and Alumni, regarded him as unpatriotic. Yet Socrates claimed that what he did—challenge others to think about what they were doing instead of sleepwalking through life, accepting the reigning political orthodoxy, or indulging in collective self-celebration—he did as an act of patriotism.

The radical claim of the Apology is that an unexamined life is not worth living and that an examined life is essential to the enactment of democratic citizenship. His patriotism, like that of Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr., is critical patriotism; loyalty is loyalty to what is best and highest in the political and cultural traditions of a people, not to what the powerful say it is.

If we wish today to sustain what is best in our “nation” and “civilization” (both of which are too polymorphous for such labels), we must honor not only the dead but also those with the courage to ask questions in the hope of understanding why the terrible events of September 11 occurred. Were the acts of terrorism evil? I think they were and that Socrates would have agreed with me. But calling them evil and justly honoring the courage of the men and women who gave their lives is not a political analysis. Engaging in such analysis does not constitute blaming the victim (something conservatives are willing to do in the social realm). Still less does it exonerate the perpetrators of the deed to ask what and who are we that we should have been the object of such an attack.

The Crito is linked to the Apology theme and time. But it tells a somewhat different story. In it, Socrates rejects offers to escape from jail and death after having been convicted of undermining the state’s religion and corrupting the youth of Athens. He refuses even though he and his friends believe the court’s verdict unjust. One reason he rejects such offers is that he regards himself as the child of Athens. Because he is, much of what he does, including his constant questioning of others and his critique of Athens, he owes to the city he is criticizing.

The implication is that, in the end, after doing all we can to convince our compatriots of their moral and political obtuseness, we owe allegiance and gratitude to the culture that nurtured us as critics. (Of course, Socrates had full citizenship rights and many powerful friends. One could argue that the obligation is less for those largely excluded from what the nation and culture have to offer.) Critics need to recognize how what they criticize has legitimated the critique they are making.

So it is true that “we” have obligations to our fellow citizens and to the highest aspirations of our culture, aspirations that are rightly the subject of continued renegotiation and contestation. It may even be that critical intellectuals have some special obligations, though they have no monopoly on thinking or wisdom. At one point in the Apology, Socrates insists that he, unlike his accusers, has only human wisdom. He means many things by this assertion, one of them being that every human is capable of thought. That is the democratic promise and challenge Socrates has bequeathed to us. In his terms, uncritical patriotism, like docility toward those in power generally or deference to reigning intellectual fads and cultural correctness, means renouncing the examined life.

J. Peter Euben is Research Professor of Political Science and the Kenan Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Duke University.

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