A British education?
by Max Wind-Cowie
This week, the Philosophy of Education Society launched a pamphlet discussing the issue of patriotism in schools. The pamphlet outlines the cases for and against seeking to educate children in the love of their country - rightly pointing out that the debate is often held from entirely different premises, with those who support patriotism education talking of the virtues of pride whilst those who oppose it merely discuss the difficulties of imparting love through pedagogy - before arriving at the conclusion that 'our responsibility as educators is not to endorse a position in the debate about patriotism' and urging teachers to discuss the controversy of patriotism as an idea rather than to attempt to teach it as a value.
The reasoning behind Michael Hand's cautiousness about patriotism is his case that it 'clouds civic judgment'. He asserts that 'love of country impedes the civic and political judgment of citizens'. On this, I fear, he has got patriotism wrong. Yes, a true patriot loves his country unconditionally - but that does not impair his ability to criticise or to judge. We all love our parents, our friends, our partners; does this prevent us from identifying their flaws or from seeing things differently from them? Of course it doesn't. Nor does the patriot - who loves his country - automatically and unthinkingly defend every aspect of the status-quo within it. As Maurice Glasman pointed out at the launch of Demos' report on patriotism two weeks ago, pride and love of country can in fact be a motivating spur to action and to political engagement. My love for my nation, for my wider community, and my sense of belonging to it will surely make me more likely to be offended by injustices afflicting other members of that national community rather than less?
As Sunder Katwala pointed out at the debate to launch Michael Hand's pamphlet, many great social advances have been made in the name of - or with calls to - patriotism. From the welfare state and the NHS to our defeat of fascism many of the great moments of British history - when it can be argued our populace and political class were exercising their moral and civic duties to the utmost - sprang from a deeply felt love of country, not from indifference or loathing towards it. And our own research, which shows that patriots are more likely to volunteer, more likely to trust other people and less likely to express xenophobia, points to the positive attributes of the patriot and the motivational force for civic duty that patriotism can be.
The author made the point in his remarks that, no matter how motivational love of country might be, it is insufficient to build a case for its promotion on the grounds of its effect on civic duty. We have other avenues, he argued, to ensure virtue, using the example of imprisoning and fining those who will not pay their taxes. He's right of course. But there are myriad levels of desirability and virtuousness below taxation. We want people to volunteer, to be honest, to be polite, to be civil, to recycle, to vote, to work (some of them at least) in materially unrewarding caring professions - it would be a draconian Government indeed that felt entitled to compel all of these things in the same way as it compels tax-paying. We need a softer layer, a gentler nudge - that nudge is love. Love of ourselves, of each other, of our communities and our country can galvanise us both to action against injustice and to civic virtue. And we should be imparting it to our children.
Social Attitude Survey
Two-thirds of young people and half of the population as a whole do not belong to any particular religion, and the steady decline in religiosity in the UK is set to continue, the 28th report of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey has found. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed the findings, commenting that the government is ‘fast becoming out of touch with the population’ when it introduces policies and new laws with a religious bias.
Unlike the highly flawed Census question, which at best measures a weak cultural affiliation to religion, the BSA attempts to examine levels of religious affiliation, whether someone was brought up in a religion, and whether they regularly attend religious services.
The survey found half (50%) of people do not regard themselves as belonging to a particular religion while only 20% belong to the Church of England. 64% of those aged 18-24 do not belong to a religion. More than half of those brought up in a religion never attend religious services or meetings. The survey also found that levels of religiosity have declined over the past three decades and are likely to decline further, as older, more religious generations die out and are replaced by younger, less religious generations.
Andrew Copson, BHA Chief Executive, commented, ‘It is quite clear that the population is becoming less religious, particularly as the proportion of younger people who have no religion grows, so the government is fast becoming out of touch with the population when it introduces policies and new laws which actually increase the role of religion in the state. Since the general election the government has set in place policies which will increase greatly the number of discriminatory ‘faith’ schools, those which open up vital public services to any number of evangelical religious groups without proper equalities protection, and has proposed not only to keep reserved seats for Church of England Bishops sitting ex-officio in the House of Lords but to give them even more privilege.
Reality
Only somebody living in a cocoon or living in a bye gone age could write this delusional tosh.
For a - probably - more accurate, certainly more intelligent/now perspective read the latest British Attitudes Survey especially the chapter on Education. Exactly what century is this Max Wind-Cowie living in?
Patriotism Max, as Dr Johnson would have said 'what a weird little scoundrel you are' ("Patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel").
Malcolm Rasala
The deep hypocrisy and profound ignorance at the heart of Max Wind-Cowie's thinking above who doubtless like his mentor David Cameron calls himself a Christian: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ The Letter of Paul to the Galatians 3-28
As Leo Tolstoy put it in his ‘The Gospel in Brief’ ...The fifth commandment: Do not make distinctions between your homeland and that of others, because all people are the children of one father.......In the previous law it was said: do good to your own people and do harm to the foreigner. But I say to you: love not only your own countrymen but also the people of other nations.....you must praise them and do good to them. If you are only good to your own countrymen then you are like everyone else who is good to their own countrymen ; and it is because of this that wars occur. But you should treat all nations equally........For the father of all people there is no such thing as different nations, there are no different kingdoms either: all are brothers, all are sons of one father. Don’t create differences between people based on nations and kingdoms”
Of course if Max Wind-Cowie above and David Cameron are not professing Christians then the above has no meaning. But if they are professing Christians as they seemingly pretend they are then what gargantuan hypocrisy they utter. I am an atheist and like most atheists one always marvels at how deeply ignorant Christians are about the philosophy they say they follow and seek to foist upon the rest of us. In reality they are Charlatans and Pharisees. Total Mountebanks.
Confused.com
A Tory Minister goes to a Nazi themed party and toasts Hitler (who killed hundreds of thousands of Brits). Mr Wind-Cowie above calls for patriotism. What exactly does the modern Conservative Party stand for? Nazism on one side? British patriotism on the other? Progessive Conservatism. Or Antedeluvian? Confused.com?
Paraclitus
Perhaps those of most struck through the feint of a heart by cupidity in their wolf lairs of the Ciy could be 'nudged' to give virtous leadership to Team Citizen UK in love of country by capitulating- without glowering foot stompings, uber voce threats, and giddy silly tantrums -to showing their love of the same country by submitting to the scrap of 0.1%(aka £1 per £1000) and barely a crumb of 0.01%(aka £1 per £10.000) of a financial transaction tax in moral contrition, pledge for the future, and perhaps, some practical relief in slight restitution for the depredations of a feral community.
Why should a citizen-or their children, be self interestedly importuned to love a country whose elected political- and groupy classes, are in tacit solidarity with those whose only patriotism is to the itchy palm?