Nationalism as a Religion, IV

...whilst in place of the saints' days of the Christian calendar appear the birthdays of national saints and heroes, such as Washington and Lincoln...

...If one calls to mind the images of national heroes with which every town is plentifully supplied and the icons of national fathers which adorn both the sumptuous clubs of the rich and the simple cottages of the poor, one can appreciate the basic religious appeal of modern nationalism...

...Human beings doubtless differ from one another in the intensity of their religious feelings...

...Besides, it has long been recognized, especially among Christians, that he who prays the loudest and beats his breast with greatest ostentation may be most lacking in true interior devotion...

...From the theologians of nationalism proceed more or less learned works, say about the Constitution, or the Monroe Doctrine, or the Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, which are commented upon and simplified by publicists and text-book compilers, and the writings of these gentlemen (and ladies) in turn are piously vulgarized by sentimental journalists and emotional orators...

...we assuage our wounded vanity by imagining that he did the wicked thing under compulsion or for financial profit...

...A faith that inspires the noblest sacrifices is apt to be intolerant in some of its manifestations, and the similarity in this respect between modern nationalism and mediaeval Christianity is striking...

...An acute literary critic in his purely secular capacity might be tempted to find fault with certain phrases in Rule Britannia, in Deutschland iiber Alles, or even in the Marseillaise...

...but we are loath to admit that our nation as a whole can make mistakes...

...Everything essential [in discussing the American Revolution] is accomplished when it is made plain to the pupils: that the colonists had just grievances...

...the worshipers stand when it is intoned, the military at "attention" and the male civilians with uncovered heads, all with external signs of veneration and respect...

...In America young people are ranged in serried rows and required to recite daily, with hierophantic voice and ritualistic gesture, the mystical formula—"I pledge allegiance to our flag and to the country for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...

...So long as public rites arid ceremonies are decently observed, the hearts of the individual worshipers need not be too closely searched...

...But a national anthem is not a profane object and does not admit of textual criticism...

...How can edification be untruthful...

...At this very moment there are hundreds of thousands of little whitewashed crosses all over northern France, each bearing the simple black inscription "Mort pour la Patrie...

...but we are estopped by the faith that is in us from doubting the providential guidance of our national state...

...Heretics are fellow countrymen who have lapsed from the pure faith and gospel—depraved beings who, having had the advantage of belonging to us and of experiencing our nationalism, have failed to appreciate it and have fallen into error or doubt...

...Nationalist mythology is not in every detail strictly accurate and literally true—no mythology ever is— but after all, its main purpose is didactic, ufor example of life and instruction of manners," and didacticism need not depend slavishly upon historical or scientific fact...

...The heretic who is a plain and simple pervert—that is, who lives abroad and takes out naturalization papers in a foreign country—is exceptional and can be merely despised and reproached...

...as a rule they are upright and honorable men...

...and it is as probable as it is desirable that in the long run our doctors of sacred theology will arrive at a compromise and will then exercise their infallible authority by incorporating into the American canon both the Woodrownine epistles and the gospel of Theodore...

...Human beings do not normally and willingly give their lives for economic gain...

...It must not question the sincerity of the aims and purposes of the founders of the republic or of those who have guided its destinies...

...and some, perhaps, are so abnormal as not to experience any religious emotion whatever...

...Toward pagans and infidels in their own distant homes—that is, toward inhabitants of foreign countries—our attitude varies all the way from amused interest or contempt, to dislike and fear and hatred...

...The school-system of the national state is held to strict accountability for any lapse from the official theology or for any slur upon the popular mythology...

...Vastly more men perished in the recent four-years' war of the nations than in the four centuries of mediaeval Christian Crusades...

...What actually happens is that they are so convinced of the sacred truth of the nationalist teachings and myths which have been handed down to them and so inflamed with the desire to confirm the faith of the multitude that they unquestionably repeat any statement favorable to the cause and may go so far as to invent and spread a quite erroneous picture of the nation's past...

...They are products of piety, and how can piety be immoral...

...These mediaeval documents, supercilious and unsympathetic moderns have branded by the ugly name of "f orgeries," but they are forgeries only in the sense that many nationalist writings and speeches of recent times are forgeries...

...The ritual of modern nationalism is simpler than that of certain other great historic religions, probably because sufficient time has not yet elapsed for its elaboration, but, considering its youthfulness, it is already fairly well developed...

...Moderns, especially Americans, are inclined to regard the mediaeval veneration of images, icons, and relics as savoring of "superstition," but let them replace a statue of Saint George by a graven image of General George Washington, an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary by a lithograph of the brave Molly Pitcher, and a relic of the Holy Cross by a tattered battle-flag, and they display a reverence which they deem beautiful and ennobling...

...We are willing to assail the policies and even the characters of some of our politicians...

...Men bare their heads when the flag passes by...

...The outright traitor—the apostate who fights against us in our crusades—is the worst...

...In popular American thought Benedict Arnold has long since ceased to be human and has become a satanic spirit...

...if we think our vital interests or our "national honor" to be threatened, we preach a crusade against them, but otherwise we tolerantly let them survive...

...There are several gradations of national heresy...

...THE GROWTH OF THE CULT By CARLTON J. H. HAYES INTERIOR devotion to nationalism is expected of all persons, though here a little allowance can appropriately be made for human frailty...

...Such rivalries, of course, can be but transient...

...He is merely making a subtle distinction between governmental officials who may go wrong and a nation which, from the inherent nature of things, must ever be right...

...Nationalism has its parades, processions, and pilgrimages...

...Toward pagans and infidels in our midst—that is, toward unnaturalized immigrants—our attitude differs according as they are few or numerous...

...It is holy...

...that they rebelled because they could obtain no redress...

...If they are few, we pity or despise them, but we do not directly persecute them...

...In the United States, for example, the Fourth of July is a nationalist Christmas ; Flag Day is substituted for Corpus Christi...

...It has, moreover, its distinctive holy days, and just as the Christian Church took over some festivals from paganism, so the National State has borrowed freely from Christianity...

...Every national state has a "theology," a more or less systematized body of official doctrines which have been deduced from the precepts of the "Fathers" and from the admonitions of the national scriptures and which reflect the "genius of the people" and constitute a guide to national behavior...

...As the Committee on Studies and Textbooks of the public schools of New York City (consisting of principals and teachers) declared in their report of March 27, 1922—"The textbook must contain no statement in derogation or in disparagement of the achievements of American heroes...

...It is not that patriotic orators and national congressmen set out to prevaricate or lie...

...If we catch him we put him to ignominious death...

...For the preservation of the faith, the common people should be kept in ignorance...

...Thus responds the faithful nationalist to the magisterial call of his religion, and thereby he intends nothing dubious or immoral...

...The mediaeval Christian was not the supremely intolerant person that prejudiced moderns imagine...

...What gives rise to popular myths about modern nationalism, as, for example, the myths associated with the American Revolution...

...Both have sprung from a lively faith and glowing imagination, and both have been justified on the common ground that they meet a contemporary need so perfectly that they must be true...

...he was harsher to heretics than to infidels, pagans and Jews...

...Blasphemy and sacrilege have always been treated by man as heinous crimes, and the modern man who allows a flitting mental doubt to find expression in jest or sneer, at the expense of the national cult, is eligible for mad-house or penitentiary...

...In America, the canon of national holy scripture certainly includes the DecJanuary 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 237 laration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington's Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine, and Lincoln's addresses, but here, as elsewhere, the canon is not yet definitive...

...and Decoration Day for the commemoration of All Souls of the faithful departed...

...An opportunity for interpretation and higher criticism is a wonderfully golden opportunity for professed theologians...

...It demands and deserves the wider range of imagination and emotion...

...By veneration of a national relic these ladies were expressing their religious sense and practicing the nationalist cult...

...In this way they contribute to the elaboration of a popular mythology and to its confusion with official nationalist theology...

...he distinguished between various kinds of unbelievers and treated them accordingly...

...This is the final mark of the religious nature of modern nationalism...

...Take, for instance, almost any Fourth of July oration delivered in any year in any part of the United States, or almost any patriotic speech read into the Congressional Record and distributed gratis among the representatives' constituents, and you will find that objective truth and scientific detachment have been sacrificed to a more emotional appeal and a higher truth...

...is the same as what gave rise in the middle-ages to the Donation of Constantine and the "pseudo-Isidorian decretals...

...and if we don't catch him we use his name forever after as a by-word...

...rather, we hope and work for their conversion to our faith, for their naturalization in our national state...

...he excites in us hatred and horror...

...My country, right or wrong—my country...

...that the dominating spirit of the Revolution is found in the words of Nathan H$le: 'I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.' " Thus is it sought to keep the minds of the young pure and uncontaminated from knowledge of the full truth which, it is assumed, might weaken, if not destroy, the nationalist faith...

...For there is a chronic fear among nationalists, as among most religious enthusiasts, that the masses are on the point of losing their faith, and a firm determination, therefore, that only such information should be imparted to them as will strengthen that faith and promote popular devotion to it...

...that they were inspired by a fierce love of liberty...

...The ways of sceptics and doubters have been notoriously subtle, and it may be questioned whether Pharisees and whited sepulchres do not exist among the hordes of sincerely devout nationalists...

...Here and there a bold teacher or a tactless textbook writer may suggest an explanation of some episode in early national history not in full harmony with the nationalist faith...

...The argument has been imputed to mediaeval Christians less justifiably than to modern nationalists...

...In 1915, when the old cracked Liberty Bell was transported from Philadelphia to the San Francisco Exposition, throngs of refined and lovely ladies met it at many a station on the long way and piously bestowed upon it their sweet kisses...

...And perhaps the surest proof of the religious character of modern nationalism is the zeal with which all manner of its devotees have laid down their lives on battlefields of the last hundred years...

...Indeed, to the national state are now popularly ascribed infallibility and impeccability...

...he dealt more severely with the ignorant than with the learned, and more excitedly with the popular propagandist than with the closet philosopher...

...In ordinary times, however, we allow crypto-heretics some freedom of physical movement and even a little liberty of speech and publication, provided, of course, that they are university professors or other "cranks," far removed from public life and without direct influence on the formation of public opinion...

...These unfortunates in times of great excitement, as in our modern national crusades, we ferret out by methods which would astound a Torquemada or a Cotton Mather, and either banish or jail, often on the flimsiest evidence...

...There is even now an intense rivalry between two theological schools, that which supports the authenticity of the gospel according to Theodore Roosevelt and that which attributes inspiration to the epistles of Woodrow Wilson...

...There can be no question, however, of the popular and compelling character of external nationalist worship...

...The supreme sacrifice is oftenest paid in behalf of an ideal and in response to the "religious sense...

...On the other hand, if they are numerous, and especially if they are recalcitrant about conversion, we grow fearful, lament the failure of the "melting-pot," and erect social, or legislative, barriers against them...

...that they counted neither the cost nor the odds against them...

...It is the Te Deum of the new dispensation...

...these are very dangerous, for they imperil the nationalist souls of the little ones...

...they may lawfully be penalized by the officials of the land, or they may be left to be handled beyond the law by ultra-patriotic private organizations, such as Black Hundreds or Fascisti or Ku Klux Klans...

...he might conceivably object, on literary grounds, to such a lame beginning as "Oh say, can you see...

...But the most perplexing and troublesome kind of heretics are the crypto-heretics—the persons who are so indecorous in their external acts of devotion, so critical of the "Fathers" and "scriptures," or so indifferent to their patriotic obligations that they are suspected of harboring interior devotion to some other nationality—or, what is worse, to no nationality at all...

...The upshot of the whole process is that a nationalist theology of the intellectuals becomes a nationalist mythology for the masses...

...But even in ordinary times, we must take cognizance of crypto-heretics who teach children or write for the masses...

...We moderns are prepared to grant that all our fellow countrymen may individually err in conduct and judgment...

...such a person, as is well established in these latter days, is liable to denunciation by some zealous patriotic society and to trial and degradation by an inquisitorial board of education—functioning as a kind of modern Dominican Order—and the offensive texts are put on a nationalist Index Librum Prohibitorum and thenceforth the civil arm may ban them from public libraries and burn them in public squares amid the plaudits of the faithful...

...What really is of importance is that they are received by the masses on faith and are reverently embodied in the popular mythology...

...Nationalism can easily survive, as other religions have survived, and even profit from, some little discrepancies and minor contradictions in Holy Writ...

...And so with the modern nationalist...

...Everywhere, in all solemn feasts and fasts of nationalism, the flag is in evidence, and with it that other sacred thing, the national anthem...

...Nationalism also has its temples, and he who would find the places and the buildings that are held most dear and most sacred by the vast majority of Americans should seek not Christian cathedrals but Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Faneuil Hall in Boston, the shrines to General Lee in Lexington, and to General Grant in New York, and the city of Washington with its stately Capitol, its White House, its great monuments to Lincoln and Washington, and its adjacent Arlington and Mount Vernon...

...and in praise of the flag, poets write odes and children sing hymns...

...Nationalism's chief symbol of faith and central object of worship is the flag, and curious liturgical forms have been devised for "saluting" the flag, for "dipping" the flag, for "lowering" the flag, and for "hoisting" the flag...