![Making Patriots](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![Making Patriots](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
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Making Patriots
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- USD 22.99
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- USD 22.99
Descripción editorial
Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes: patriots who have willingly put their lives at risk for this country and, especially, its principles. And this is even more remarkable given that the United States is a country founded on the principles of equality and democracy that encourage individuality and autonomy far more readily than public spiritedness and self-sacrifice.
Walter Berns’s Making Patriots is a pithy and provocative essay on precisely this paradox. How is patriotism inculcated in a system that, some argue, is founded on self-interest? Expertly and intelligibly guiding the reader through the history and philosophy of patriotism in a republic, from the ancient Greeks through contemporary life, Berns considers the unique nature of patriotism in the United States and its precarious state. And he argues that while both public education and the influence of religion once helped to foster a public-minded citizenry, the very idea of patriotism is currently under attack.
Berns finds the best answers to his questions in the thought and words of Abraham Lincoln, who understood perhaps better than anyone what the principles of democracy meant and what price adhering to them may exact. The graves at Arlington and Gettysburg and Omaha Beach in Normandy bear witness to the fact that self-interested individuals can become patriots, and Making Patriots is a compelling exploration of how this was done and how it might be again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1932, theologian and political philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr observed the ambiguous nature of patriotism as a virtue. Patriotism, he argued, requires an individual's self-sacrifice to the self-interest of a particular group and, as such, often results in horrific evils and conflicts. Berns (Freedom, Virtue, and the First Amendment), professor emeritus at Georgetown and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, acknowledges that the idea of patriotism in 21st-century America is indeed a paradoxical one. After all, in a country that elevates the self, to be a patriot requires one to give up one's self for something greater, most notably one's country. In his brief survey, Berns explores the meaning of patriotism in ancient times in Sparta, the changing idea of patriotism after the establishment of Christianity (when loyalties to church and state became divided) and the emergence of the American flag as the symbol of a republic to which Americans pledge their allegiance. He asserts that our contemporary educational system does not succeed in educating young people in the ways of patriotism and urges schools to rethink their ways of inculcating love of country in students. Finally, he elevates Lincoln to ""patriotism's poet," for the 16th president "promoted love of country, reminding us that as citizens we are bound to each other... by a cause we hold in common." Unfortunately, Berns's book offers no clear definition of patriotism, though his view of it appears narrow and sentimental. Although plenty of people will disagree with him, Berns comes to no startling new conclusions about patriotism; he merely recycles old ideas that will appeal to a limited readership.