The Truth about Patriotism is a bracing repudiation of the claim that patriotism is essentialβor even beneficialβto democracy. Contending that even at its best patriotism subverts the democracy it purports to value, Steven Johnston turns to patriotismβs defenders to show how they must jettison much of democracy to champion patriotism. Closely examined, patriotism itself effectively demonstrates the impossibility of love of country. Patriotism, Johnston argues, tends toward narcissistic self-regard, blind to its violent ways of being in the world and its dependence on death. Thus we would be better off without it.
Drawing largely from aspects of American political and popular culture, this wide-ranging book presents a wealth of examples to disclose patriotismβs self-defeating character. They include Richard Rortyβs and John Schaarβs enmity-driven love of country, Socratesβs angry judicial suicide, the violent obsessions of High Noon and Saving Private Ryan, the triumphalist self-display of the World War II Memorial, Oliver Stoneβs and Don DeLilloβs spectacular representations of the assassination of President Kennedy, George W. Bushβs symbolic sacrifice of more Americans in commemoration of September 2001, and yet other memorials to and apologies for patriotism. Ultimately, Johnston calls for a vision of democracy that uses the tragic possibilities inherent in politics as a spur to a life-affirming civic ethos of reciprocal generosity.
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