The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
The final factor of patriotism, according to our analysis, is loyalty
to country as an historical object. The ideas and the feelings
centering about the conception of country as personal, as living, as
having rights and experience, duties and individuality are likely to
be vivid and intense. They are the inspirers of supreme devotion to
country, and also at times, of morbid national pride and fanatical
country-worship. The education of this idea of country we should
suppose would be one of the fundamental problems of the development of
patriotism. Presumably we are not to try to destroy this idea of
country that all people seem to have, or to show it as one of the
illusions of personification. Country is, of course, different from
the mere sum of the people. It has continuity and it performs
functions and it is an historic entity. Modernize and reform this
idea, we must, but we cannot do away with it as something archaic and
superstitious. Country is real, the concepts of honor and right belong
to it, and country is something to which the mind must do homage.
Boutroux says that a nation is a _person_, and has a right to live and
to have its personality recognized as its own. Granting this to be
true, and that we must think of country as personal and active, the
question arises whether this concept of country is something that
_requires in any definite way educational interference_. We should say
that if countries are essentially living historic entities having as
such a high degree of reality, this reality-sense will be an important
element in the practical life of peoples. There can be no thought in
our historical era of breaking up these entities we call nations. It
is a day of intensified rather than of diminished nationalism. The
sense of reality of nations must, we might think, be made more
intense; pride of country must remain; we may find some place even for
the idea of the divine nature of country, which is an element in the
patriotic spirit everywhere. That this conception of country is a very
necessary element in the morale of a country in war seems clear; that
the morale of peace must be founded upon the same personal and
religious sentiments we can hardly doubt.
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