Just in time for Independence Day, Gallup released polling results showing that a remarkable number of Americans are losing faith in their country and what it represents. Unsurprisingly—given who controls the levers of power in the federal government—Republicans are more proud to be Americans this year than last, while Democrats are significantly less so. What’s troubling, however, is that pride in the nation has fallen considerably among political independents and has fallen, over time, among all age groups of respondents. Most disturbingly, only 58% of American Millennials and a scant 41% of Generation Z-ers are proud of their country. “Notably,” as Gallup puts it, “more Gen Z Democrats say they have little or no pride in being an American (32%) than say they are extremely or very proud.”
Some observers, including some who are very smart and very well plugged in, have suggested that a big part of the problem here is that American kids simply aren’t taught today what makes this country so great. Instead, kids are taught more about the nation’s weaknesses than its strengths, more about its failures than its far more numerous successes. These observers ponder the question asked by President Reagan in his farewell address—“Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?”—and they answer, “Clearly, we are not.”
There’s not much to dispute here. This conclusion is almost inarguably correct. The American education system, at all levels, is woefully derelict in its teaching of history, American history in particular. What young children are taught about this nation’s past focuses largely on the negative, while overlooking most of the positive aspects.
Unfortunately, there’s much more to it than just that. The lack of education about America’s rich and amazing history is a small part of a much larger problem. It is more a symptom than the illness itself.
Pride in one’s country—or “patriotism”—is more than just a “feeling.” It is more than a mere emotional response to the power a nation wields or the victories it accumulates. Rather, patriotism is a virtue, which is to say that it is a good and productive reflex, a positive behavior, but it is something that itself must be taught, must be teased out of “the little human animal.” It is not enough merely to teach history. We must also teach the appropriate way to respond to that history. Among other things, patriotism is the means by which we come to know what is important and valuable, and moral in our community. And it must begin, therefore, with a common understanding of what is important and valuable and moral in our community.
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Author: Ruth King
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