To the rest of the world, American nationalism may still seem first and foremost a hypocritical version of idealist universalism. Its primary associations are with the borderless-world globalism, at once capitalist and electronic, that hypes McDonald's and MTV along with free markets and carefully selected human rights.
But recently there has been a retrenchment, a circling of the wagons, a scaling-down of American nationalism in the direction of Realpolitik. These days there are many American policy-makers and media pundits who no longer bother to pretend that what's good for us is good for the world.
With a menacing modesty, they are now content to champion one national interest against all others. The mood is neo-medieval. And with a silent bow in the direction of post-modernism, the leftist intellectuals attacking Nussbaum seem to say that if there is indeed no metalanguage, no metadiscourse — and hence no position outside or above the melee — they must make no judgments.
In fact, this limitation on thought turns out to have unexpected benefits for the world's most powerful nation, which can present itself as just another tiny particular locked in battle with a tyrannical, totalizing universalism. Hence another paradox: faced with criticism of their country from the outside, liberal and rightist intellectuals can claim the protection that the cultural Left has accorded to smaller and more vulnerable collectivities He is a professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal cross-appointed in the philosophy and political science departments and twice ran losing federal election campaigns as the NDP candidate against Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
I agree with Martha Nussbaum in so many ways but sometimes she seems to be proposing cosmopolitan identity as an alternative to patriotism. If so, then I think this is a mistake. And that is because we cannot do without patriotism in the modem world. This necessity can be seen from two angles. The most important is this: the societies that we are striving to create free, democratic, willing to some degree to share equally -- require strong identification on the part of their citizens.
A citizen democracy can only work if most of its members are convinced that their political society is a common venture of considerable moment, and believe it to be of vital importance that they participate in the ways they must to keep it functioning as a democracy. This means not only a commitment to the common project, but also a special sense of bonding among people working together in this project.
This is perhaps the point at which most contemporary democracies threaten to fall apart. A citizen democracy is highly vulnerable to the alienation which arises from deep inequalities, and the sense of neglect and indifference that easily arises among abandoned minorities. That is why democratic societies cannot be too inegalitarian. But this means that they must be capable of adopting policies with redistributive effect and to some extent also with redistributive intent.
And such policies require a high degree of mutual commitment. In short, the reason why we need patriotism as well as cosmopolitanism is that modern democratic states are extremely exigent common enterprises in self-rule. They require a great deal of their members, demanding much greater solidarity towards compatriots than towards humanity in general. We cannot make a success of these enterprises without strong common identification.
And considering the alternatives to democracy in our world, it is not in the interest of humanity that we fail in these enterprises. We can look at this from another angle. Modem states in general, not just democratic states, having broken away from the traditional hierarchical models, require a high degree of mobilization of their members. Mobilization occurs around common identities. Some of these will be wider than others, some more open and hospitable to cosmopolitan solidarities.
It is between these that the battle for civilized cosmopolitanism must frequently be fought, and not in an impossible and if successful, self- defeating attempt to set aside all such patriotic identities. Take the example of India that Martha Nussbaum raises. The present drive towards Hindu chauvinism of the BJP comes as an alternative definition of Indian national identity to the Nehru- Gandhi secular definition of India.
And what in the end can defeat this chauvinism but some reinvention of India as a secular republic with which people can identify? I shudder to think of the consequences of abandoning the issue of Indian identity altogether to the perpetrators of the Ayodhya disaster. In sum, what I am saying is that we have no choice but to be cosmopolitans and patriots; which means to fight for the kind of patriotism which is open to universal solidarities against other, more closed kinds.
But this nuance is, I think, important. This letter was written from an Alabama jail where King was imprisoned for an act of breaking a segregationist law. In reading this letter critically assess the idea that King is a great American patriot. My dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely.
If I sought to answer all of the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day and I would have no time for constructive work.
But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders coming in.
Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because we were invited here. I am here because I have basic organizational ties here. Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country. You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. I would say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community with no other alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1 collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2 negotiation; 3 self-purification; and 4 direct action.
We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation.
These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers.
But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation. Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Numan Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations.
As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us.
So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.
We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification. We started having workshops on non-violence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail? Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the byproduct of direct action, we felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes.
Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead, and so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day.
When we discovered that Mr. Connor was in the run-off, we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the run-off.
This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We too wanted to see Mr. Connor defeated; so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need.
After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer. You may well ask, "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc? Isn't negotiation a better path? Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just re- ferred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister.
This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, and there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth.
Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue. One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely.
Some have asked, "Why didn't you give the new administration time to act? We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr.
Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.
For years now I have heard the word "Wait! This "wait" has almost always meant "never. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.
The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out.
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly not hatefully as the white mothers did in New Orleans when they were seen on television screaming "nigger, nigger, nigger" and with a willingness to accept the penalty.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law To be sure a person may be without a country, and we might argue that a basic virtue should be possible for a person independently of contingent circumstances.
One reaction is that such a virtue is possible for a countryless person. Another is that it is a contingent matter whether one makes any promises, so promissory virtue would not be basic either, if we insisted that virtues be such that good persons must possess them independently of their life circumstances. As I characterize patriotism, it is in its most basic form a trait of character, though arguably the trait may be a suitably stable attitude rather than a structural feature of character.
I am inclined to think that the trait tends to carry acceptance of this doctrine, and the doctrine is important in any case. An interesting implication of the strict hierarchy conception is that every virtue must be capable of conflicting with some other; else we could have a virtue of an indeterminate level: it could not even be said to be of the same level of any other, since location in a level requires dominance relations.
One might think, however, that the notion of two virtues being at the same level is not definable on the hierarchy picture, but that is not so. Two could differ conceptually, but each bear the same dominance relations positive or negative to the same other virtues. Loyalty and steadfastness might in some forms be an example. For a case that free democracy is morally grounded, see Audi For detailed discussion of cosmopolitanism and a case for a strong kind leading to world government see Pojman I find both characterizations usefully suggestive; but the first characterization is too indefinite in specifying neither what kinds of obligations are in question nor any limit on their weight, and the second is indefinite in its first clause and highly vague in its second, negative clause.
For an informative discussion of the elements that must be considered to achieve a proper balance between patriotic and cosmopolitan concerns, see Richard Miller Miller Another valuable discussion of the requirements for a proper balance here is Soniewicka forthcoming. The importance of rationality, motivation, and sentience for grounding moral status is considered in some detail in Audi The upshot is that we have violated negative moral duties toward them and are not merely failing to fulfill positive ones.
An earlier draft of this essay was written for presentation at the U. Pojman, who taught there from through the spring of It has benefitted from discussion with that audience and the audience at the Helsinki School of Economics and from comments by Igor Primoratz and Marta Soniewicka. The essay is dedicated to the memory of Louis Pojman. Audi, R. The architecture of reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar. Moral foundations of liberal democracy, Secular reasons, and liberal neutrality toward the good. Brock, G. Brighouse, eds. The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Copp, D. International justice and the basic needs principle. In Brock and Brighouse, 39— McCabe, D. Patriotic Gore again. The Southern Journal of Philosophy — Article Google Scholar.
Miller, R. Cosmopolitan respect and patriotic concern. In Brock and Brighouse, — Orwell, G. Notes on nationalism. London: Polemic. Pogge, T. A cosmopolitan perspective on the global economic order. In Brock and Brighouse, 92—
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