How many of you are familiar with the Flag Code? Apparently that is enough, however, to satisfy many people, especially families who have lost a son or daughter to war and former soldiers who have lost friends, and who need to be reassured that the patriotic response of their loved ones was justified and that they didn't die in vain.
It is no accident, I suggest, that the strands of universality and particularity are braided through the history of American peoplehood, as they are I suspect, for political communities throughout the West. Tolstoy and other critics have argued that patriotism is incompatible with these notions - that it is egoism writ large, an exclusive and ultimately aggressive concern for one's country, and a major cause of international tensions and war.
It is crystal clear from the above ten lines that it is a patriotic poem secular to the core - with ill will to none person or group is not only Just a beautiful-cute little song, but the emotion of patriotism in it is so expressed that any one who hears the choroidplexuscyst.org song will fall in love with the immediate environment he so far ignored or rather failed to notice.
Of course, one should note that Lincoln's splendid words failed to avert a horrific conflict with a faction within his country, a faction that violently disagreed with his understanding of the relation between the particular and the national. Many of the 99% of Americans that are not in the military are so unconcerned about the 1% of the Americans that are in the military, that they seem unaware or unconcerned that their military is not always adequately cared for.
And it seems to me that serving that part of who we are, and serving it energetically, and having it be the driving force in American politics, is not only a wonderful way to express patriotism, but also to ensure that our collective strength, as a people, is used for those noble global aims that you and I share.
It is no accident, I suggest, that the strands of universality and particularity are braided through the history of American peoplehood, as they are I suspect, for political communities throughout the West. Tolstoy and other critics have argued that patriotism is incompatible with these notions - that it is egoism writ large, an exclusive and ultimately aggressive concern for one's country, and a major cause of international tensions and war.
It is crystal clear from the above ten lines that it is a patriotic poem secular to the core - with ill will to none person or group is not only Just a beautiful-cute little song, but the emotion of patriotism in it is so expressed that any one who hears the choroidplexuscyst.org song will fall in love with the immediate environment he so far ignored or rather failed to notice.
Of course, one should note that Lincoln's splendid words failed to avert a horrific conflict with a faction within his country, a faction that violently disagreed with his understanding of the relation between the particular and the national. Many of the 99% of Americans that are not in the military are so unconcerned about the 1% of the Americans that are in the military, that they seem unaware or unconcerned that their military is not always adequately cared for.
And it seems to me that serving that part of who we are, and serving it energetically, and having it be the driving force in American politics, is not only a wonderful way to express patriotism, but also to ensure that our collective strength, as a people, is used for those noble global aims that you and I share.
