Pride and Prejudice: the false choice between patriotism and skepticism.

AuthorSullum, Jacob
PositionCulture & Reviews - Book Review

Why We Eight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, by William F. Bennett, New York: Doubleday, 170 pages, $19.95

9-II, by Noam Cbomsky, New York: Seven Stories Press, 125 pages, $8.95

LIKE MANY AMERICANS, my wife and I put out a flag after 9/11. It was not a fleeting impulse; in fact, it took me a while to find a flag holder, since all the local stores had been cleaned out of patriotic paraphernalia. But neither was it something we thought about deeply; it seemed a natural expression of solidarity. So I was surprised by the mixture of bewilderment and scorn I sensed from out-of-town visitors that November. "What's with the flag?" said one.

At the same time, I had a similar reaction to people who seemed to be going overboard in expressing their love of country, trying to outdo each other with electrical displays, multiple bumper stickers, or little flapping flags that made their cars look like they'd gotten separated from the rest of the presidential motorcade. And as the weeks went by, I started to wonder how long our flag should stay up. Some of our neighbors seemed determined to leave theirs out until the war on terrorism was over, and it wasn't clear to me that it ever would be. Then there was the question of what to do on Independence Day. Take the flag down?

But my discomfort with excessive flag waving was a mere quibble compared to the position taken by The Nation's Katha Pollitt. "My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window," she wrote shortly after the twin towers fell. "Deflnitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war."

In Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, William Bennett cites Poilitt's response to her daughter's suggestion as an example of leftish contempt for patriotism, a knee-jerk reaction so strong that it could overwhelm the feelings of shock, sadness, sympathy, anger, and defiance aroused by 9/11. He has a point. It's obtuse to insist that flying the flag means endorsing everything the U.S. government has ever done. If a Catholic can wear a crucifix without supporting the Inquisition and the Crusades, an American can put up a flag without justifying "jingoism and vengeance and war." In both cases, the person displaying the symbol has in mind particular values, at least some of which Katha Pollitt surely shares. To many of us, the flag represents liberty, tolerance, and the rule of law, the principles on which the nation was founded but which its government has not always honored.

Still, it's no use pretending that flag waving has never been associated with the kind of unreflective patriotism that assumes nothing done in America's name could be wrong. Because of this connection, I must admit that at a certain point I started to worry that continuing to display our flag might be interpreted as support for whatever the Bush administration decided to do in the name of fighting terrorism. Bennett himself reinforces that equation in his book, which blurs the distinction between suspicion of government and hatred of America. He is impatient with critics and skeptics generally, not just the ones who cringe at the idea of flying the flag, and he cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the United States has ever been anything but a force for good.

The opposite sort of blindness afflicts Noam

Chomsky, the self-proclaimed dissident intellectual (and best-selling author) who rehearses his litany of America's sins in 9-l1, which endeavors to show that what Al Qaeda did to us was nothing compared to the suffering we have inflicted on oppressed people around the world. Bennett and Chomsky summed up each other's shortcomings during a clash on CNN last spring. "I think you should acknowledge [America's] virtues a little more often, Mr. Chomsky," said the former drug czar and perpetual scold. "And you should acknowledge its crimes," Chomsky responded. Americans who are prepared to do both will be comfortable neither with Bennett's uncomplicated love-it-or-leave-it...

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