Tolstoy, Leo - Patriotism & Government

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PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMENT

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Patriotism and Government

By Leo Tolstoy

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMENT

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

Patriotism and Government

By Leo Tolstoy

"The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult You can

offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interests of the privileged classes of

the particular State system into which we have happened to be born." - E. BELFORT BAX.

I have already several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an

unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which

mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling--should not be cultivated, as is now

being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to

rational men. Yet, strange to say--though it is undeniable that the universal armaments and

destructive wars which are ruining the peoples result from that one feeling--all my arguments

showing the backwardness, anachronism, and harmfulness of patriotism have been met, and are

still met, either by silence, by intentional misinterpretation, or by a strange unvarying reply to the

effect that only bad patriotism (Jingoism or Chauvinism) is evil, but that real good patriotism is a

very elevated moral feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational but wicked.

What this real, good patriotism consists in, we are never told; or,if anything is said about it,

instead of explanation we get declamatory, inflated phrases, or, finally, some other conception is

substituted for patriotism-- something which has nothing in common with the patriotism we all

know, and from the results of which we all suffer so severely.

It is generally said that the real, good patriotism consists in desiring for one's own people or State

such real benefits as do not infringe the well-being of other nations

Talking recently to an Englishman about the present war, I said to him that the real cause of the

war was not avarice, as people generally say, but patriotism, as is evident from the temper of the

whole of English society. The Englishman did not agree with me, and said that even were the

case so, it resulted from the fact that the patriotism at present inspiring Englishmen is a bad

patriotism; but that good patriotism, such as he was imbued with, would cause Englishmen, his

compatriots to act well.

'Then do you wish only Englishmen to act well?' I asked.

'I wish all men to do so,' said he; in dictating clearly by that reply the characteristic of true

benefits whether moral scientific, or even material and practical -which is that they spread out to

all men. But, evidently, to wish such benefits to everyone, not only is not patriotic, but is the

reverse of patriotic.

Neither do the peculiarities of each people constitute patriotism, though these things are

purposely substituted for the conception of patriotism by its defenders. They say that the

PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMENT

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peculiarities of each people are an essential condition of human progress, and that patriotism,

which seeks to maintain those peculiarities, is, therefore, a good and useful feeling. But is it not

quite evident that if, once upon a time, these peculiarities of each people-these customs, creeds,

languages were conditions necessary for the life of humanity, in our time these same peculiarities

form the chief obstacle to what is already recognised as an ideal the brotherly union of the

peoples ? And therefore the maintenance and defence of any nationality- Russian, German,

French, or Anglo-Saxon, provoking the corresponding maintenance and defence not only of

Hungarian, Polish, and Irish nationalities, but also of Basque, Provencal, Mordva, Tchouvash,

and many other nationalities-serves not to harmonize and unite men, but to estrange and divide

them more and more from one another.

So that not the imaginary but the real patriotism, which we all know, by which most people to-

day are swayed and from which humanity suffers so severely, is not the wish for spiritual

benefits for one's own people (it is impossible to desire spiritual benefits for one's own people

only), but is a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people or State above all other

peoples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages

and power that can be got- things which are obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and

power of other peoples or States.

It would, therefore, seem obvious that patriotism as a feeling is bad and harmful, and as a

doctrine is stupid. For it is clear that if each people and each State considers itself the best of

peoples and States, they all live in a gross and harmful delusion.

II.

One would expect the harmfulness and irrationality of patriotism to be evident to everybody. But

the surprising fact is that cultured and learned men not only do not themselves notice the harm

and stupidity of patriotism, but they resist every exposure of it with the greatest obstinacy and

ardour (though without any rational grounds), and continue to belaud it as beneficent and.

elevating.

What does this mean?

Only one explanation of this amazing fact presents itself to me.

All human history, from the earliest times to our own day, may be considered as a movement of

the consciousness, both of individuals and of homogeneous groups, from lower ideas to higher

ones.

The whole path traveled both by individuals and by homogeneous groups may be represented as

a consecutive flight of steps from the lowest, on the level of animal life, to the highest attained

by the consciousness of man at a, given moment of history,

Each man, like each separate homogeneous group, nation, or State, always moved and moves up

this ladder of ideas. Some portions of humanity are in front, others lag far behind, others, again -

the majority- move somewhere between the most advanced and the most backward. But all,

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whatever stage they may have reached, are inevitably and irresistibly moving from lower to

higher ideas. And always, at any given moment, both the individuals and the separate groups of

people-advanced, middle, or backward- stand in three different relations to the three stages of

ideas amid which they move.

Always, both for the individual and for the separate groups of people, there are the ideas of the

past, which are worn out and have become strange to them, and to which they cannot revert: as,

for instance, in our Christian world, the ideas of cannibalism, universal plunder, the rape of

wives, and other customs of which only a record remains.

And there are the ideas of the present, instilled into men's minds by education, by example and

by the general activity of all around them; ideas under the power of which they live at a given

time: for instance, in our own day, the ideas of property, State organization, trade, utilization of

domestic animal, etc.

And there are the ideas of the future, of which some are already approaching realization and are

obliging people to change their way of life and to struggle against the former ways: such ideas in

our world as those of freeing the labourers, of giving equality to women, of disusing flesh food,

etc.; while others, though already recognised, have not yet come into practical conflict with the

old forms of life: such in our times are the ideas (which we call ideals) of the extermination of

violence, the arrangement of a communal system of property, of a universal religion, and of a

general brotherhood of men.

And, therefore, every man and every homogeneous group of men, on whatever level they may

stand , having behind them the worn-out remembrances of the past, and before them the ideals of

the future, are always in a state of struggle between the moribund ideas of the present and the

ideas of the future that are coming to life. It usually happens that when an idea which has been

useful and even necessary in the past becomes superfluous, that idea, after a more or less

prolonged struggle, yields its place to a new idea which was till then an ideal, but which thus

becomes a present idea.

But it does occur that an antiquated idea, already replaced in people's consciousness by a higher

one, is of such a kind that its maintenance is profitable to those people who have the greatest

influence in their society. And then it happens that this antiquated idea, though it is in sharp

contradiction to the whole surrounding form of life, which has been altering in other respects,

continues to influence people and to sway their actions. Such retention of antiquated ideas

always has occurred, and still does occur, in the region of religion. The cause is, that the priests,

whose profitable positions are bound up with the antiquated religious idea, purposely use their

power to hold people to this antiquated idea.

The same thing occurs, and for similar reasons, in the political sphere, with reference to the

patriotic idea, on which all arbitrary power is based. People to whom it is profitable to do so,

maintain that idea by artificial means, though it now lacks both sense and utility. And as these

people possess the most powerful means of influencing others, they are able to achieve their

object.

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