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Patriotic
Fictions
May 28, 2002
By Dwayne Eutsey
Patriot: One to whom the interests of a part seem superior
to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool
of conquerors. —Ambrose Bierce
Back when a Middle Eastern newspaper broke the Iran/Contra
scandals in the ‘80s, the grandmother of a friend of mine
said something that has continued to bother me all these years
since.
As irrefutable evidence surfaced that the Reagan administration
secretly sold weapons to America’s sworn enemies, and then
used the profits to illegally fund a war in Nicaragua, this
genteel, conservative, Christian lady said: “I hope they can’t
prove that Reagan did anything.”
What I found disturbing about what she said was that she
didn’t necessarily hope that Reagan was innocent of any wrongdoing;
in fact, she seemed certain he was guilty of something. Her
only apparent concern was that “they” might be able to prove
that Reagan had committed these crimes.
It seemed to me that should this happen (i.e., if the truth
that sets you free were actually known), it would threaten
her belief that it was indeed “morning in America again;”
that a cowboy, armed only with a Bible and a six-shooter,
had rode into town and saved the land from those menacing
heathens around the world and the weak-kneed liberals here
at home.
What's most bothersome to me is that she, like many Americans
today who don’t want to interrupt all the flag waving to answer
uncomfortable questions about what Bush knew prior to the
9/11 attacks, was so unwilling to allow larger truths to intrude
upon her rosy patriotic fictions.
Before any right-wing lurker reading this immediately jumps
to the conclusion that I believe patriotism is a fictional
sham, let me say I don’t necessarily mean “patriotic fictions”
here in a derogatory way. What I mean by the phrase is the
stories we tell ourselves as a nation in order to understand
who we are, what we believe, and what makes us uniquely American.
At their best, these narratives have the power to unify us
and challenge us to rise above narrow self-interest and nurture
the “better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln eloquently put
it. Or, as Ambrose Bierce cynically observed over a century
ago, they can stratify us with self-serving delusions that
promote the selfish interests of the part above the needs
of the whole.
Patriotic fictions can teach us the value of shared self-sacrifice,
as when JFK proclaimed: “Ask not what your country can do
for you; ask what you can do for your country.” They can rally
us to overcome daunting challenges, as with FDR’s: “The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Or they can illustrate
the virtue of individual dissent, as when Patrick Henry shouted
over accusations of treason: “As for me, give me liberty or
give me death!”
However, you need only to have watched CNN over the past
year to know that patriotic fictions can also be self-serving
platitudes designed to pit “us” against “them”: “You’re either
with us or against us.” Or they offer up jingoistic phrases
that, like any good marketing slogan, say anything you want
and nothing at all: “Let’s roll.” Or they uncritically shout
down dissent with “my country right or wrong,” and insist
“it’s my way or the highway.”
It’s fictions like these, embraced by people like my friend’s
grandmother, that were the cornerstone of Reaganism in the
‘80s and inflated Reagan and Ollie North into Rambo-style
“heroes” instead of the treasonous felons they are.
And now these same fictions, being sold to us along with
all those flags you see flapping on SUVs, are puffing up Bush’s
apparently high approval ratings, even as it becomes increasingly
clear that his administration was incredibly negligent (at
the very least) in protecting our country from terrorist attack.
As more and more unsettling questions are raised (or buried)
concerning Bush’s inaction or foreknowledge prior to 9/11,
it seems to me that our national narrative has come full-circle
and we find ourselves imperiled by the same constitutional
cliffhanger we faced as a country in the mid ’80s.
What’s the denouement going to be this time, I wonder? Will
we courageously rise together to confront the ugly truths
that are growing in number all around us? And by confronting
them as the true heroes of our more noble patriotic fictions
have done, rescue our democracy once again from almost certain
peril?
Or will we pretend it’s still morning in America, roll over,
pull the flag up over our heads, and drift complacently back
to sleep again?
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