10-12-2001
		The Typewriter Monkey 'Patriotism, schmatriotism'

By Chris Verkaik

`Patriotism, schmatriotism'

Two things occurred to me as I drove to Indianapolis for the Farm Aid benefit concert last weekend. One, Dave Matthews was playing a solo set, which meant I would be spending the day surrounded by over-zealous teenage girls. Two, the events of Sept. 11 would still be fresh in everyone's mind, which meant I would be spending the day surrounded by over-zealous flag-wavers.

Both of my assumptions turned out to be correct (which meant lots of flag-waving teenage girls), but there was one surprise: the flag-wavers annoyed me more than the Dave Matthews fans, no small achievement. I left the concert wondering what it was about that kind of patriotism I find so unnerving.

It occurs to me now that my distaste for patriotism is similar to my distaste for cheerleaders - both take your attention away from what is really going on in order to get you to participate in the rather arrogant assertion that your team or country is better than the other one. In the game of basketball the practice is a harmless, though annoying, distraction, but the phenomenon can be particularly dangerous in the realm of international politics.

Behind every chorus of ``God Bless the U.S.A.'' is the implicit assertion that we, as a country, are better than everybody else. The more we sing our songs, repeat our chants and wave our flags, the more we get ourselves into that type of mindset: we are good; they are bad. We are the forces of freedom; they are the forces of oppression. God is for our country and against their country. Those who doubt that these thoughts are present in our country today need only switch their radios to the AM dial.

It seems this tendency is firmly engrained in the national subconscious. In the 1830s, French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville made this observation: ``For fifty years the inhabitants of the United States have been repeatedly and constantly told that they are the only religious, enlightened and free people. They have an immensely high opinion of themselves and are not far from believing that they form a species apart from the rest of the human race.'' Does this sound familiar to anyone else?