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Helen:
We're writing this book for the average American citizen who feels that they
don't have time for politics in their lives. They're usually happy people
who just want a nice life. Many we've spoken to say they don't think
there is much difference between Republicans and Democrats, or liberal and
conservative ideas. Many just want to get along with the rest of the
world and, because they don't know the basic principles of America, think
the easy way out is the best way. We want to inform through conversations
such as ours today. So please tell us about your personal awakening
to the Great Experiment.
Mr. Berns: The Great Experiment being America?
I had no great awakening. I've been an American all my life...stars
and stripes American all my life. My Father served in WWI and there
was no question but that I would serve in WWII. So there was no awakening
in my life; and I don't think my life was special in that respect.
When I was young I was a tennis player, a serious tennis player, and as I
recall when we talked, more and more the talk turned to America going into
the war. We debated it and some talk was about not being seduced by
British propaganda and the stories of Belgian babies having their hands cut
off, but there were no unpatriotic Americans among my associates.
Peter: When you said you were debating with your
friends at the tennis club, how would you characterize that debate compared
to the debate we were having in this country before we went into Iraq?
Mr. Berns: We were then concerned about the British
propaganda of Nazi brutality. There were of course cases of Nazi brutality,
but with respect to Belgian babies' hands being cut off, that was not true.
Anyway, what we were really arguing was whether we should go into that war
to pull Britain's chestnuts out of the fire again. At a certain point
in my own experience, after France had fallen and the prospect arose of England
being invaded, I realized that was a horrible possibility. I realized
the heritage, the connection we had with Britain. We read our textbooks
in English, I had learned to memorize Shakespeare, Elliot.
Peter: So there was a cultural motivation to get into the war?
Mr. Berns: There was never any question of whose side we would go with, but whether or not to make the commitment to go.
Peter: You mentioned you grew up as an American.
It was a revelation at some point. You never thought about being a
patriot; you sort of found yourself a patriot. Was there anything that revealed
to you that not everyone was as patriotic as you were?
Mr. Berns: As a matter of fact, I can't remember any associate
of mine who was different in that respect, and I don't think I lived in a
special part of America. Nowadays, however, the universities are distinct
in that respect. That wasn't so in the 1930's.
Helen: So, when you grew up, it was perfectly normal
to be patriotic. Now, the elite seem to want to make it abnormal.
They portray it as "not intelligent." What sort of misconceptions about
America do you think lead to that idea?
Mr. Berns: I can answer that through speculation about
university people. To be patriotic is to be bourgeois, and they are
anti-bourgeois. They regard themselves as people of science and they
have contempt for bourgeois business people. People who work in universities
are endowed by wealthy people, but they have contempt for them. They
hate the people who feed them. There is nothing uniquely American about
this. George Orwell spoke about the same thing in terms of British
intellectuals. It seems that intellectuals think they are above the
fray.
I remember something that happened in Cornell in my days of teaching.
It was the 4th of July celebration in the stadium with fireworks; the townspeople
and the college faculty got together for this event. At a cocktail
party later one professor's wife was asked in my presence whether she enjoyed
the celebration. "Yes," she said, "but I could have done without all
the flag waving." I thought of that old song that was around when I
grew up, "if you don't like my peaches, why do you shake my tree?"
In other words, what did she expect at a 4th of July celebration! But
that was typical of universities when I taught there.
Helen: Let's talk about your book, Making Patriots.
What do you think the alternative to waving the flag at our Independence
Day celebrations would be for that person? In your book you speak about
various cultures having different allegiances. For example, it was very simple
for the Spartans of old.
Mr. Berns: I'll use the example of Yale where I
taught for a while. In the yard is a statue of Nathan Hale and inscribed
on it is the motto, "For God, for Country and For Yale." Two of those
things the Spartans didn't have: God and Yale. Each city-state had
its own God and there was no difference between religious allegiance and
country allegiance. We make that distinction as a matter of principle
in America. So it is possible there can be a conflict between the two
and we've always known that. During the first Congress there was a
discussion whether there should be an exemption from military service for
the pacifist sects, such as the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Schwenkfelders.
Now, there wasn't a problem with allegiance in Sparta, but there was in Athens.
The Athenians had an intellectual life and, as you know, Socrates was executed
for allegedly corrupting the youth. There is always a possibility that
what you learn in Sunday school, what you're taught at home and what you
learn in university will conflict. We've always had those tensions
in this country.
Helen: Do you think those tensions make us greater?
Mr. Berns: What they do is they affect our patriotism.
They prevent it from being a blind patriotism, along the lines of, "this
country right or wrong" sort of thinking. There is something
to be said for intelligent patriotism. To illustrate that point I quote
Lincoln in his eulogy on Henry Clay: Lincoln said Clay was a patriot
who "loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly
because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement,
prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human right and human nature."
To answer your question, an American patriot is a better patriot than a Spartan
who loves his country simply because it's his country and doesn't know anything
else.
Peter: The implication is that the American patriot has made a conscious decision and the Spartan was just indoctrinated.
Mr. Berns: Yes, you'll find that I go into that in great depth in the first chapter of the book.
Peter: One of the ideas that might be around in
academic circles is that patriotism is a lower level, gut-feeling thing,
that it comes from the lower passions, the unthinking emotions and that it's
too nationalistic. I'm interested in the origins of this leftward trend
and I believe it has something to do with the rationalistic or analytical
attitude, what might be called the "scientific method." You mentioned
that the intellectual elites feel superior to and removed from the
masses and can look at things objectively. So things like patriotism
or faith in God are judged by them to be subjective, not objective.
Mr. Berns: Let's be more precise about this. When I make my statements
about university faculties I'm referring essentially to the fields of the
arts and sciences, not the engineers. At Cornell, a distinguished engineering
school, we in arts and sciences had little to do with the faculty of engineering,
yet I can say the faculty of engineering were more likely to be bourgeois.
They were not likely to be what I'm talking about when I condemn the rest
of the facilities as having a contempt for the bourgeoisie.
Peter: In my university we use to call them the "plumbers."
Mr. Berns: The distinction, I think, is we intellectuals thought we
were above the rest. Also science as I use the term is not quite accurate
because engineering is science. Also, the professors of English, then, were
more likely to be patriots. Now, they seem to be more deconstructionists
and I won't go into what that is because I've written about it extensively.
However, those principles are incompatible with a simple attachment to the
principles of the United States because, according to deconstructionism,
nothing has meaning.
For a while at Cornell we had the leading deconstructionist, a man
named Paul de Man. We were there at the same time. What was later
revealed about him was very interesting. He was a Belgian and during
WWII he was a Nazi. I don't use that term carelessly. These
facts weren't revealed until the 1980's. Had they been known earlier, he
never would have been able to get a job here. Yet, he had no difficulties
being accepted as a distinguished professor. He had a career at Cornell,
Johns Hopkins and Yale. Had he been a communist, that would have been
all right, but he wanted to cover up his ties to Nazism because that would
have been beyond the pale. These things came out after he died
yet there was no question about it; he was a real Nazi.
Peter: Not just an apologist or propagandist?
Mr. Berns: No, he was a real Nazi... and that tied in with his deconstructionism.
Peter: Do you think there is a useful distinction to be made between nationalism and patriotism?
Mr. Berns: Sure, a nationalist is someone who falls into the category
of "my country right or wrong." I have a couple of pages about that
in the book. It really was an outgrowth of the French attempt to spread
the principles of the French revolution. The agent of this attempt
was, of course, Napoleon and this led the German philosopher Fichte to say,
"I speak for Germans simply, of Germans simply."
Peter: In the French national anthem they speak of les enfants de la patrie, i.e., "the children of the country."
Mr. Berns: That was a French revolutionary song, originally, and the
French revolution was not a nationalist enterprise at all. On the contrary.
Peter: I think of nationalism as the "place of birth."
Mr. Berns: There are terms within our vocabulary that are not in other
languages. We have "Americanism," yet you won't find such things as
"Swiss-ism," for example. That phenomenon was known to G.K. Chesterton in
the 19th century and he spoke about it.
I guess the question is, "what does it mean to be an American?"
The answer is not simply being born in this country and being a citizen.
What does it mean to be a good American? Well, you pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United States of American and to the Republic for which
it stands. So, what does the Republic stand for? It stands for
certain ideas and that takes us back to the Declaration of Independence.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence are not peculiarly American.
They were not intended to be. They didn't say they were. They were universal
principles.
Peter: "We hold these truths to be self evident... "
Mr. Berns: So that's the line you have to take when you ask what it
means to be an American. It doesn't simply mean you were born or naturalized
here. It's someone like Henry Clay. Think about Lincoln's eulogy.
He also talks about 'human' liberty, 'human' nature. It's not American,
it's human. In one of his last letters Jefferson said that in the course
of time every country would recognize principal truths about human nature
and become like this country. What makes us one people is not where
we were born, but attachments to these principles.
Peter: There is some current thinking that we should reject nationalism
because we really need to be thinking globally. Our allegiance should
be to the world, not just to a nation. There seems to be a contrast
between "thinking globally" and adhering to universal, self-evident truths.
Mr. Berns: Yes, Martha Nussbaum, for example. Her argument was that
patriotism led to a narrow nationalism, and that we should be devoted to
the "cosmopolitan principle of justice" and so forth and so on. Unfortunately,
there is no concrete manifestation of 'cosmopolitanism' anywhere! If
you are really devoted to these principles you really ought to be devoted
to the United States, because the United States is the one country where
we actually try to live these principles.
Peter: Exactly!
Mr. Berns: Remember in Tienanmen Square in China several years ago
the students made a statue of the American Statue of Liberty.
Apparently they had a discussion whether the face on the statue should be
Chinese or not and they decided it really didn't make any difference, which
is quite proper. The United States is the beacon to the world.
Peter: So we get back to nationalism and do you think Americanism can be contrasted with nationalism?
Mr. Berns: Sure. Our principles are not parochially American.
Peter: So, if he sees his country drifting away from these principles,
a patriot will work to guide her back to them. Would that be a valid
statement?
Mr. Berns: Yes, a loyal citizen would see to it the best he can that
the country doesn't drift away from those principles. For instance,
if this country had joined the German Reich against the English in 1940-41,
that would have been a desertion of our principles. An American patriot
would have resisted that mightily. An obvious contest of this sort
was, of course, the Civil War. People were torn. The best example
was General Lee who said he could not go against his country, which he considered
to be Virginia. He said that when Lincoln offered him command of
the Union Army. He was tormented by his loyalties. There were
other famous Southerners, George Thomas, for example, who went with the Union
even though they were born in the south. It was an agonizing time for
many of them. One should understand that. Even Tocqueville makes this
observation and claims that most Americans were loyal to their states at that
time. The Union was still an abstraction. The Civil War changed that.
Lincoln changed that.
And now I'll go back to that original question of the Great Awakening in
my case. I can remember going down Michigan Avenue on Memorial Day
and watching the troops and there were still Union soldiers in the
parade feebly carrying the standard. That was 1926. Illinois
was a big Union State. I quote the words of the official state song:
"When the Southern host came through / pitting the Grey against the Blue
/ there were none more brave than you / Illinois." We used to sing
that in the schools.
Peter: There have been changes in the schools in the interim, not just
in the universities! It seems currently we have a shift from patriotism
to individualism. People seem to think of the State as an appliance
that helps them carry on with their own desires and pursuits of happiness.
Mr. Berns:
Tocqueville coined the term 'individualism,' meaning, thinking only of oneself
and perhaps one's own family. He didn't intend it as a term of praise
at all. Now we use it as meaning non-conforming. For Tocqueville individualism
was a problem. He thought it might possibly lead to a kind of despotism
which he describes in one of the last chapters of the second volume.
People who would allow the State to do everything for them and become incapable
of governing themselves. This is in contrast to despotism based on fear...of
the "do this or we'll kill you" sort. His notion of despotism in modern
democracies is different. In modern democracies the State becomes sort
of a tutor, keeping the people in a state of tutelage. Some Republicans
complain about the amount of care the government is providing the people
now.
Helen: I'd like to get back to a quote of yours. In 1776, Tom Paine
spoke of "the summer soldier and sunshine patriot who will shrink from the
service of their country." A few years later, and to the same effect, Alexander
Hamilton said, "The industrious habits of the people of the present day,
absorbed in the pursuits of gain and devoted to the improvements of agriculture
and commerce, are incompatible with the condition of a nation of soldiers."
Paine and Hamilton were apprehensive about allowing people freedom.
Nothing is said about our duties. How do we cultivate those duties?
Mr. Berns: Most Americans are proud Americans. That was manifest in
dramatic fashion in the aftermath of 9/11. The willingness to help was tremendous.
My secretary here, only about 27 years old, went to New York. She was
unclear as to what she could do, but wanted to help. She ended up wrapping
sandwiches for the firemen and policemen. What happened on 9/11 was
a common pain, in part because the approximately 3,000 people killed were
men, woman, blacks, whites, Chinese, Americans, what have you. The
pain suffered by the victims and their families were suffered by all Americans.
That's a good sign. The flag appeared all over the place.
Helen: A few days after 9/11 a message come over the internet to go
out at night and shine a flashlight up to the sky. A satellite was
supposed to record it to show the terrorists that the lights would never
go out. We did it, found out later it was a hoax, but still felt good
doing it. Sometimes it seems we need something to do; anything from
wrapping sandwiches to a show of defiance.
Mr. Berns: And with the military being volunteer we're separated from
the people who defend us. Such a situation didn't exist in 1941.
Helen: We seem to be concentrating on changing the parts of government
we don't like and forgetting that we have duties. We act as though
government should be taking care of those for us.
Mr. Berns: It doesn't make sense to talk about a public sentiment of
duties. They are two different things; to have a sentiment of
duty and to have a duty to perform. Here's an illustration of this
difficulty: The church I go to, an Episcopal church in town,
they have what is called a forum between the two morning services. These
are not necessarily religious forums. In fact, twice I was asked to
speak, once on Lincoln, and on one occasion a headmaster of a private school
was speaking about self esteem. As we listened I realized no one except
myself objected to the term "self-esteem." I listened to him and remembered
the words of the prayer which go something like this, "we have not done what
we ought to have done, we have done what we ought not to have done, there
is no health in us." Yet, this fellow was talking about self-esteem
and whereas, if you're a good Episcopalian, you don't think of the self.
Peter: That's the sin of pride isn't it?
Mr. Berns: Where did this idea of self-esteem get into the curriculum,
that people should think well of themselves? Where is the idea that
we should ask God to forgive us for not doing what we're supposed to do?
Helen: Since the 1960's a lot of churches, especially the new ones,
have turned from demanding that the individual work to better himself, toward
an activism intended to "change the world" so that the individual can feel
better about himself.
Peter: I have a cynical notion about why self-esteem is playing such
a central role. Basically, it feels good. Back in the 60's we
were instructed by Jerry Rubin to "do it if it feels good." Feeling
good, the feeling of success, the feeling of achievement, those all do feel
good, and obviously if we can create that good feeling without the hard work
of actually being successful or doing good it will appeal to a lot of people.
Education and work are difficult and if we can get kids to feel good about
themselves and feel accomplished then we will have served our purpose.
I don't believe anyone would overtly say that's the purpose, but I believe
it has to do with many ideas (misconstrued, I believe) of toleration, sharing
and equality. It reaches the absurd level of kids being prevented from
keeping score at ball games.
Helen: Again, we shift from my 'duty' to my 'rights.' How many
rights does an individual have? There are many people who are
believing this and they are not bad people; they just haven't thought it
through.
Mr. Berns: In part, the government doesn't expect them to do anything.
What duty do we have? To obey the law, to pay taxes. Are we asked
to defend our country?
Peter: I will be. As a naturalized citizen I was asked
to sign a paper saying I will bear arms for my country if asked to.
Helen: Yes, as part of a great national emergency, but then every citizen
would be asked to do something, militarily or civically. It's assumed
so, but I bet a lot of people would question that. It reminds me of
the snowfall we had last year. The snowplows were late getting to our
street. We shoveled out our car and an old couple's car, but we saw
many of our neighbors standing around complaining, basically not knowing
what to do because it wasn't being done for them. It never occurred
to them to do it themselves. If the government doesn't do it, it doesn't
get done.
Again, they're not necessarily bad people, they just haven't thought about
it; it's not part of their world anymore. And our government keeps
saying, "We'll do more and more for you. Don't worry, we'll take care of
it for you." So, we're trying to bring back that love of country where
we can learn to be the best we can be through our love of country.
Just as marriage is a sacrifice to another, we sometimes have to sacrifice
or have duties to our country; more than duties to just ourselves.
Mr. Berns: War has the capacity to remind us what it means to be a
good American. 9/11 reminded us of that and brought forth sentiments
and a willingness to do for the country. The government doesn't force
us to do anything. The government has set up a volunteer program, it's
there, but it's voluntary. People have found that they feel good about
themselves when they actually volunteer and do things.
Helen: Back to self esteem, feeling that you're good is not the same
as doing good, and people really do know the difference in their hearts.
Mr. Berns: The thing that disturbs me are articles in the New York
Times, or the press in general, talking about body bags, emphasizing the
deaths that occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn't do
that in WWII. In fact, it wouldn't have been possible to bring back
all the bodies in body bags. If you've seen the Memorial on the Mall
you know there were over 400,000 deaths. Yet, that didn't stop us from
doing what we had to do. Yet the press wants us to believe that, because
of a few hundred deaths, we should stop, that the American people can't stand
it. I don't believe it.
Helen: What we're talking about is that when you love someone or something
you voluntarily sacrifice for them or it.
Mr. Berns: You're willing to, yes.
Helen: We'd like to work that idea into patriotism. It's not
just a duty, but rather a duty that grows out of the love. It's not
an obligation.
Mr. Berns: Well, what's a good Christian? A good Christian loves
his neighbor as himself. I'm thinking of the Good Samaritan and thinking
that we don't have need of him so much anymore since the government and insurance does it for us.
Helen: So, would less government cultivate more patriotism?
Mr. Berns: Not necessarily, but it might promote the idea of taking
care of your neighbor because you realize your neighbor is your neighbor
in need. If there is no department of the government to do it, you do it.
Helen: We were speaking to someone at a party who told us that if the
government doesn't take care of our "neighbor" no one will do it. He
forgot that neighbors used to help each other, that churches and charities
help people. Before the depression, that's the way it was done. Philanthropy
was rampant. Do you think that was patriotic?
Mr. Berns: I'm not sure about that, maybe it was "being a good citizen."
One last word: don't despair, because when the chips are down and when they
start bombing us again, which they will try to do, Americans will again remember
to take care of each other.
Peter and Helen: Thank you very much.
Making Patriots is available on Amazon.com.
Dr. Berns is a Resident Scholar at The American Enterprise Institute and authors of the following books:
Making Patriots
After the People Vote
Taking the Constitution Seriously
For Capital Punishment
The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy
In Defense of Liberal Democracy
Freedom, Virtue, and the First Amendment
Professional Experience of Dr. Berns
-Professor Emeritus, 1994-present, John M. Olin University Professor, 1986-1994,
Professorial Lecturer, 1979-1986, Georgetown University
-Faculty, University of Chicago, 1984, 1989; University of Toronto, 1969-1979;
Colgate University, 1970; Professor of Government, 1959-1969, Chairman, Department
of Government, 1963-1967, Cornell University; Yale University, 1956-1959;
Louisiana State University, 1953-1956
-Member, Judicial Fellows Commission, 1986-1988
-Member, National Council on the Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1982-1988
-Consultant, Task Force on Judicial Selection, Twentieth Century Fund, 1988
-Member, Board of Directors, Institute for Educational Affairs, 1980-1988
-Member, Joint Committee Project ’87, Joint undertaking of the American Historical
Association and American Political Science Association to commemorate the
bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1987
-Consultant, United States Department of State, 1983-1987
-Lecturer, Phi Beta Kappa Society Lecture Series, 1985-1986
-Member, Council of Scholars, Library of Congress, 1981-1985
-Alternate U.S. Representative, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 1983
-Guggenheim Fellow, 1978-1979
-Advisory Board Member, National Institute of Law Enforcement, 1974-1976
-Fulbright Fellow; Rockefeller Fellow 1965-1966
-Lecturer, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, 1959
-Carnegie Teaching Fellow, 1952-1953
- U.S. Navy, 1941-1945
Peter
& Helen Evans, international teachers and authors, write articles and
teach a philosophical approach to conservatism. Their website is http://peterandhelenevans.com.
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