Hence, it's a war flag - and a quasi-religious symbol -- Final End

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Date Posted: 15:54:36 03/16/02 Sat
Author: Drummond
Subject: Hence, it's a war flag - and a quasi-religious symbol
In reply to: The Serpent 's message, "Re: It's because people will relate war with their country." on 12:49:36 03/16/02 Sat

And nothing else as a practical matter, except when we're indoctrinating school children with a pledge that began as a marketing technique for a flag distributor.

I posted the following on a right wing dominated forum, but I think it might be a topic of interest here as well.

The following is a passage from Barbara Ehrenreich's "Blood Rites" from the chapter entitled: "Three Cases of War Worship."

I fully expect that 4 out of 5 of the conservatives here will fail to grasp the point, and trot out whatever canned arguments they have about patriotism, flag burning, communism, and whatever happens to cross their stream of consciousness. However, one or two of you will actually read the passage and possibly be able to support your position and we'll have an interesting and thoughtful discussion.

But to preface, I think we have enormous communication problems across ideological lines because we don't even agree on the meanings of the words we use. The right winger presumes the iconoclasticism of left wing values is anti-patriotism. But it's not the country, or even many of the ideals that the flare-ups most occur over. It's the symbolism. Most of us on the left simply don't relate to the power of the symbolism.

Ehrenreich writes of American Nationalism as practiced by the right wing:

"It is practically speaking, a religion onto itself - our "civil religion," to use American sociologist Robert Bellah's phrase. In some of its more fervent and sectarian versions, American nationalism makes common cause with white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Christian milleniarianism and even adopts Nazi symbolism. But my concern here is with the more mainstream form of nationalism, which is thought to unite all of America's different races, classes, and ethnic groups. Compared to the blood-soaked rhetoric and rituals of Nazism, this civil religion is a bland and innocuous business-perhaps especially to someone who was raised within its liturgy of songs, processions, prayers, and salutes. It is, nonetheless, an extension and a celebration of American
militarism, and no less bellicose in its implications than State Shinto or Nazism.

American patriotism, like the nationalisms of other nations, is celebrated on special holidays, and these are, in most instances, dedicated to particular wars or the memory of war. The Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Veterans Day all provide occasions for militaristic parades and the display of nationalistic emblems and symbols, especially the flag. On these and other occasions, such as commemorations of particular wars or battles, bugles are blown, wreaths are ceremoniously laid on monuments or graves, veterans dress up in their old uniforms, and politicians deliver speeches glorifying the
nationalistic values of duy and "sacrifice." Through such rituals and observances of nationalism as a "secular religion," historian George L. Mosse has written,
ware is "made sacred."

But the "religion" of American patriotism is also distinctive in at least two way. First, it features a peculiar kind of idolatry which can only be called a "cult of the flag." Just as the wartime Japanese fetishized the emperor's portrait, Americans fetishize their flag. A patriotic pamphlet from 1900 declared in unabashedly religious terms that the United States "must develop, define, and protect the cult of her flag, and the symbol of that cult, the State Spangled Banner, must be kept inviolate as are the emblems of all religions." Early twentieth century leaders of the Daughters of the American Revolution held that "what the cross is to our church, the flag is to our country," and in more overtly primitive terms, that the flag has been "made sacred and holy by bloody sacrifice."

(footnote: Other comparable English speaking nations-The United Kingdon, Canada, and Australia-do not indulge in flag worship. According to the Wall Street Journal, British efforts to create a mass market for Union Jacks have fallen flat. "Many don't like what it stands for. A fair number aren't sure when, or if, the law lets them unfurl it. Quite a few haven't the foggiest idea of which side of it is up.")

The American flag can be found in almost every kind of public space, including churches, and it must be handled in carefully prescribed, ritual ways, down to the procedure for folding. It is "worshipped" by displaying it, by pledging allegiance to it, and, occasionally, by kneeling and kissing it. It is the subject of our national anthem, which celebrates a military victory signaled by the survival, not of the American soldiers, but of the American flag, when, the rockets' red glare the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.

And anyone who still doubts that the American flag is an object of religious veneration need only consider the language of the proposed constitutional amendment, narrowly defeated in the Senate in 1995, forbidding the "desecration" of flags."

You might take exception to Ehrenreich's tone as patronizing, but what about what she says? Why is the symbol elevated higher than the people involved, or even the principle? Nobody is proposing bans on Constitution burnings (held often by the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison for it's failure to eradicate slavery). Or the Declaration of Independence. Or even the Bible.

Webster's definition of "descrate" is "to violate the sacredness or venerability of." So right wingers propose that we place the value of a symbol over the very real value of the First Amendment, more directly representing the freedom people presumably join the military to fight for.

This is precisely what the first amendment was designed to eradicate, namely the application of the coercive apparatus of the state to impose a particular symbolism on individuals, and over and against other symbols.

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Replies:

Jehovahs witness children will not salute the flag. -- PAUL., 21:00:56 03/16/02 Sat
- Yes, I know -- Drummond, 22:31:03 03/16/02 Sat