Roots of Patriotism

In Wednesday’s class, DK said, “One’s love for country is an accident of birth.
It is an ingredient within the human condition that we attach ourselves to locations and to emblems, or symbols of those locations. We can recognize the universality of our emotional attachment to these symbols - they mean the same thing to each of us. This is an example of unity within diversity. The universal inclination to valorize certain symbols. It is natural, recognize it for what it is and do something constructive with it. Use it to unify the peoples of the planet.

I believe attachment to one’s locale, one’s country, and its symbols are simply manifestations of the natural, biological imperative of the human-animal to survive. It is the pack mentality that drives human beings towards territorial dominance and the instinct to preserve their territory by whatever means necessary, including warring on neighboring “packs” if our need for resources outgrows our current territory; or if we consider a neighboring “pack” a threat to our existing territory/resources or future resource requirements.

I look upon these now biologically limiting drives as the basest in the nature of the human-animal. It is the foundation of all that it is negative and dehumanizing in the concept of patriotism, because it fosters “otherness” at the expense of our humanity. We should be utilizing our minds, our consciousnesses, our souls and our spirits – our ethics and morality – to solve all the problems that spring forth naturally as diverse, potently-unequal populations strive to share unsustainable and sustainable resources in the single environment we call planet Earth.

Perhaps this is what DK meant when he addressed the fallacy of internationalism - I’m going to love your mother as much as I love my mother. I am going to empathize with you as a mother-lover, or lover of my country.

“’Unity in variety’ is nature’s plan in the evolution of the universe, and that only by harmony and brotherhood among religions and and by mutual toleration and help can the mission and destiny of humanity be accomplished.” Maharaja of Khetri. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume III. p. 202