Tim Sandefur takes issue with Matt Yglesias’s post about the nature of patriotism. Tim writes:

When Yglesias ridicules the idea “that the citizens of Iraq or Russia or China or wherever will drop their own patriotisms and come to see things our way,” what he is ridiculing is the idea that people can come to believe in the premises upon which our nation relies—the premises of equality and liberty—premises which, of course, should never be bargained away in an abject search for peace at any price. He is ridiculing the idea that Americanism is anything more than ethnic happenstance. He is therefore ridiculing the idea of government by the understanding, principled consent of the governed.

I agree that the vision of America as a nation bound together by a shared commitment to liberty and equality is an inspiring one, and I think it’s one that libertarians should be especially excited about, given that our Constitution is largely a libertarian document. The problem is that, Abraham Lincoln’s inspiring words not withstanding, this just isn’t patriotism as most people use the term.

Patriotism is, at its root, a feeling a group solidarity. Americans are patriotic about America because we identify as Americans and we see other Americans as “us” and the rest of the world as “them.” As Matt says, this is fundamentally the same kind of feeling that binds together Red Sox fans, Italians, Lutherans, Mac users, libertarians, and so forth. Human beings naturally identify themselves with particular groups and tend to root for other members of the group and against those perceived as adversaries of the group. Red Sox fans root for the Red Sox and against the Yankees. Dedicated Mac users root for Apple and against Microsoft. Americans root for Americans and against nations like Cuba, North Korea, and Iran that are perceived as America’s adversaries.

In some cases, people choose to be members of particular groups for specific, articulable reasons. Someone might become a Mac user because they had a bad experience with their Windows PC, or they might become a libertarian because they study Hayek or Rand. But in many other cases—indeed, I would argue, the vast majority of cases—peoples’ groups get chosen for them based largely on happenstance. Some immigrants may choose to become Americans for explicitly ideological or philosophical reasons, but I’m an American because I was born here, and the same is true of most other Americans.

Of course, most members of a group can articulate reasons they prefer their own group to others. Fans of sports teams can invariably explain in great detail what they like about their own team and dislike about their rivals. But in most cases, people became fans of their sports teams first and learned about their advantages afterwards. By the same token, most Americans can give good reasons they love America, and usually freedom, justice, equality, and democracy are important parts of the stories they tell. But most of them became Americans first (by being born here) and learned about America’s various virtues afterwards.

Loving your country because it embodies specific political ideals isn’t patriotism, it’s called having a political philosophy. Patriotism is loving your country because it’s your country, regardless of what political ideals it may or may not embody. Most people would not switch allegiances if they became convinced that another country better embodied their political ideals. Or as Will put it so well:

If you meet a women with all the attributes you claim to love about your wife, only better, and you run off with her because of their excellence, then you never really loved your wife. You loved her attributes. You can rightly claim never to have been unfaithful. Indeed, to stay would have made you untrue — to your values. But to fully love a woman, or a country, is to love some one particular thing.

We can see the difference between patriotism as love of country and patriotism as love of founding ideals by considering an issue like the flag-burning amendment. Someone who conceives of patriotism as an expression of liberty should be appalled at the idea of restricting freedom in order to defend a symbol of freedom. Yet many Americans support a flag-burning amendment, and every single one of them considers himself or herself a patriot. In this example, at least, patriotism is closer to “my country right or wrong” than an idealization of America as the land of freedom.

Tim continues:

These other nationalities (Canadians or Mexicans or French or Russian) are based on ethnicity and chance, while American nationality is based on choice and the assent to certain basic principles that make up our nation.

Americans like to imagine that this is unique to themselves, but it just isn’t true. The Franch consider themselves the heirs of a revolutionary, republican tradition that was founded in opposition to monarchical absolutism, just like us. The French even sent us a statue commemorating the shared political ideals of French and Americans. While it’s true that French people are the ancestors of a relatively homogenous ethnic group in a way that Americans are not, the French certainly don’t regard themselves as merely a random assemblage of people who happen to have been born in their country. Until the Soviet Union fell apart, the Russians felt the same way, although of course the political ideals they embraced were horribly flawed. And of course, Canada’s political ideals are very similar to America’s, and they’re a nation of immigrants the same way we are.

Many French and Canadian people regard themselves and their system of government as superior to most others around the world, including ours, in precisely the same way that most Americans do. They will, of course, tell a slightly different story about why their country is better than the others. And as an American, I’ll probably disagree with their assessment. I really do think America is better than most other countries and I’ll gladly tell people why. But I also try to temper my belief in America’s superiority with the knowledge that there are billions of non-Americans out there who just as sincerely believe that their own countries and systems of government are better than America. I think that, on balance, America’s institutions are superior to what can be found elsewhere, but I also think we should recognize that other countries probably do at least a few things better than us, and we’ll be better off if we take their critiques seriously.

It’s important to understand the social and psychological processes that lead people to be biased in favor of their own groups in part because it will make us more effective at persuading others to adopt our ideals. Our goal in Iran, for example, should not be to make Iranians patriotic Americans—an impossible task—but to make them (classical) liberals. The way to do that is to convince them that it’s possible—maybe even natural—to view liberalism and Iranian patriotism as compatible. This is one of the reasons I’m a big fan of Tom Palmer’s work to convince people around the world that liberty is not an American invention but the common heritage of mankind. Tom goes out of his way to find home-grown examples of liberty in the various countries where he works—writings of ancient Chinese philosophers in China, Sumerian writings in the Middle East, and so forth. We’re never going to turn Iranians or Chinese into American patriots. But we may be able to help them cultivate a more liberal conception of what it means to be an Iranian or a Chinese patriot.