Is America really the greatest country in the world or are we hurting future generations by promoting this sort of nationalistic attitude in our children?
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Do you remember pledging allegiance to the flag as a child? I do. It was never a big moment in the day. They slipped it in after breakfast and before we started cutting construction paper into snowflakes with safety scissors. There was never a big to-do, or any serious conversation after the words were said where the teacher would explain to the children what the words actually meant. It was just something that was said every morning. It carried the same weight as, “Good morning” or “How’d you sleep?” I barely even remember the words but I know I said it every day of elementary school. What I remember best is that every kid in the class would make up replacement words in an attempt to make the kids around them laugh. “I pledge allegiance to the hag and to the school district in which she teaches…” was always a guaranteed gut buster.
“…without self-reflection by our citizens and examination of our core beliefs as a country, there will cease to be growth, both personally and nationally.”
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As a kid, I never questioned this kind of thing. I usually did as I was told. I might have slipped in a few jokes but I mostly stayed within the bounds of what was considered acceptable behavior. But as an adult, I’ve started questioning everything that I’ve ever been taught. When I looked up the origin of the pledge of allegiance, I found that it was created in 1892 as a way to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing on our shores (and the “Under God” part wasn’t added until 1954 as a way to separate America’s religious beliefs from that of the Soviet Union; who was considered an atheist nation). This made me question the practice even more. Why do we make our children stand each morning in remembrance of a genocidal slave trader who got lost and accidently discovered a country where people already lived? It’s a strange custom to have as a society but I guess that it’s meant to generate some national sense of pride in our children. That’s not what it does but the sentiment is still a nice one, I suppose.
Another thing that I heard a lot as a child but never really questioned until I was an adult is the statement, “America is the greatest country in the world.” This is another thing that every American hears growing up. But it begs for a follow-up question that never gets asked, “What exactly makes us the best country in the world?” We have more people in prison than any other country, we have more gun related deaths than any other developed nation, we are ranked 22nd in the world for literacy and 37th in the world for healthcare (the study was done before the Affordable Care Act took effect). Nothing on that list screams “We’re #1” unless you count prison population and gun deaths, but I don’t think that puts us in first place. Some would argue that the right to vote is what makes us the best but because of redistricting and gerrymandering that’s beginning to mean less and less.
At this point, now that everybody’s nice and angry, I should say that I love my country. I feel privileged to have been born here. But I am also able to see the arrogance in a statement like, “we are the greatest country in the world” or the danger that comes from making a child pledge allegiance to a cause or country before they are able to understand what that pledge means. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet 1 in 6 people still go to bed hungry each night. We are listed among the most progressive nations, but racist and homophobic thoughts are still ever present in the mindset of the average American. I watch the news to see children dying in their schools, young black men being shot out of unwarranted fear and people being thrown out of their homes so banks can resell their houses to make a bigger profit. If this is the criteria for being the best country in the world, the human race is doomed.
“…when we teach our children that we are already the best, we leave no room for improvement, advancement or evolution as a society.”
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By telling our children that we are living in the best country in the world and urging them to pledge allegiance to that country before they have the ability to think critically about that pledge or statement, we are doing our children and our nation a disservice. We are creating generation after generation of loyal nationalists that don’t have the ability to question the role of America in the world or the decisions that the government makes on their behalf. And without self-reflection by our citizens and examination of our core beliefs as a country, there will cease to be growth, both personally and nationally.
There is nothing wrong with having pride in your country but pride isn’t what we are teaching our children. We are teaching them blind nationalism. We are teaching them that no matter what we do as a country, we will always be #1. And that’s dangerous. The best thing that we could ever do for the future of our nation is to teach children how to think for themselves. To have a society with a well-informed population that questions everything they are told, would truly be the greatest society in the world. We want the skeptics and the cynics. We want the non-believers and the suspicious. We want a society that will never take information that is spoon fed to them without checking to see who’s holding the spoon. But right now, that’s not what we have. We live in a country where misinformation is passed off as news and the average citizen just accepts what they are told. We fight over the distractions given to us and repeat propaganda to feel a warm sense of American patriotic pride, without ever really asking ourselves what the words mean.
So in the end let me be clear, we are not the greatest country in the world. Not that I think there’s a country that is better, I just don’t believe the title exists. Some things that we do, as a nation, are wonderful but other things are horrific. We can be better than we are. But when we teach our children that we are already the best, we leave no room for improvement, advancement or evolution as a society. We will be just another country full of people shouting meaningless political slogans, while wearing giant foam fingers that read “We’re #1.” Or in other words, we will only be as great as we are at this moment.
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–Photo: shine 2010/flicker
Other countries have had problems too,no doubt.But that is not the point.America presents as one thing but in fact is actually something else.
Yes I have.And I recently purchased and am reading Laurence H.Tribe’s book,American Constitutional Law.My point is that Constitutional law is the racist and sexist framework from which the agencies in question are licensed.Of course the Bill of Rights is not enforced.It is an addendum lacking the power and authority of the original document.This fact underscores my original point.How and who we are today-including institutions birthed after the Constitution- is defined in the first laws laid out in this tome.
I find it ironic when people decry patriotism, religion and nationalism yet openly support establishing hard lines around other identities (gender, race and sexuality). I call it the “good for me, yet not for thee” rule. Xenophobia is truly one of the main roots of conflict- people find those who are not of their “tribe” to be suspicious. If youre decrying differences one would expect that your goal of homogenaeity be consistent. Secondly- for those bemoaning the history of the United States- I challenge you to find me one single country that does not have “problematic” elements in its history.… Read more »
I agree with the essential premise of this article, let’s help our kids be proud of who they are and what they do, not the amorphous blob that is “nations”. Patriotism, along with religious fundamentalism and nationalism are the building blocks of racism and xenophobia and bigotry, which in turn are the leverage that help fuel support for wars and unfair treatment of other nations. I never teach my kids that Australia is the best, only that we are lucky in many ways, and so are many other places in the world.
There’s a famous quote that says “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” and another famous quote that says it’s the first refuge of the scoundrel. Either way, patriotism has a way of harboring some dubious characters. I have a patriotic streak, but it’s a particular kind of patriotism from growing up in a military family, being in the Boy Scouts, etc. It’s offensive to my sense of patriotism for people to decorate themselves with stars and stripes and to use the flag like it’s a party favor. It’s offensive to me that people use the flag as a… Read more »
@Iben How are you? To answer your question I will borrow a phrase from the movie A Few Good Men shouted by Jack Nicholson at Tom Cruise,”You can’t handle the truth!” Americans can’t handle the truth,especially when spoken by one of its millions of victims.It is too close,too real.The defining document in American history is the Constitution.This document enshrines the racism and sexism and colonalism that are defining,enduring, qualities of America culture.
Have you actually read the Constitution? If not, look up the Enumerated Powers section that specifically lists the responsibilities of government. 90% of the existing agencies have NO place on that list. The other problem is that the Bill Of Rights, supposedly the highest laws in our land are not being enforced. If they were, any politician, judge or cop who violates them would be arrested and tried. If found guilty they would have to make restitution to their victims at their own expense. I don’t confuse my country with the idiots who run it, and never have, Go to… Read more »
A horror show Ayn Randian nightmare is what it would be if we followed the vague, antiquated, and completely insufficient bill of rights and constitutions. FDR tried to get a second bill of rights done, but like everything else his enemies balked him. The only thing that makes this shithole of a country even barely livable is the fact that the federal government routinely oversteps the constitution and does stuff that might actually make things better rather than leaving it up to the private citizens (who were never intended to be allowed to vote by Hamilton and Jefferson ANYWAY..).. It’s… Read more »
You’re right, the enumerated powers are finite. However, there are other parts of the Constitution that are open-ended. There are parts of the Constitution that say quite clearly that the gov’t may create things not specifically mentioned in 1787. For example, the “elastic clause,” which gives Congress the right to pass any laws that are “necessary and proper.” Necessary and proper as defined by the government itself, of course. You can drive a planet through that loophole. And, of course, the authors clearly meant the Constitution to be subject to some degree of interpretation by later Americans. Even the specifically… Read more »
Wow.Finally,some real hardcore critical analysis about what America is or isn’t.For minorities like myself,even as children, these questions were common and every present on our minds and on our lips.Malcolm X,Muhammad Ali,Mlk,Markus Garvey,and many,many others raised these questions about America.And they were severely punished for doing so.They were radicalized as dangerous,ungrateful unamericans.Yet,here we are.asking the same questions with zero thoughts to how minorities have been expected to drink this tainted kool-aid and like it.We still fail to recognize that the injustices we are discussing are institutional and morally supported by faith: not random,disconnected events. We don’t care what happened to… Read more »
This is nothing new. During WWII we allied ourselves with Joseph Stalin who was every bit the mass murderer Hitler was, then as soon as the war was over we turned around and prosecuted people on suspicion of being Communists and used Nazi scientists to beat Russia to the moon. We also put Japanese Americans in prison camps even though they committed no crimes. The FBI spied on antiwar and civil rights groups and tried to set them up. National Guard troops fired on unarmed students at Kent State. Ruby Ridge and Waco. Now we have Homeland Security, the TSA… Read more »
You think we would have learned from earlier Presidents who declared a War on Poverty (Johnson) and a War on Cancer (Nixon). How are those going, by the way?
Hi Austin You raise an important question. Nationalism is by many said to grow around the world these days as a counter reaction to globalism,EU and such.. Why not teach out children the truth about the world? To love the place you are born in is a fine thing. To lie about our societies to children is stupid. Is USA the best place to be born,to grow up and live all your life? Look at the ideology you brain wash children with. Look at how they are told about America that gives them more opportunities for social mobility than anyone… Read more »
There are two aspects I feel I must comment here. A few years ago a Puerto Rican student was was almost expeled when she refused to do the pledge of allegiance. It’s funny how schools will worry more about the pledge of allegiance than about kids having lunches thrown out over $.50. http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/04/24/puerto-rican-teen-refuses-to-pledge-allegiance-to-american-flag/ Second and I think it is the most important acpect of the entire US #1 reteric. USA IS NOT AMERICA!!! America is both continents. Every time a person in the US says america, they are ignoring every other country in the entire hemisphere! That is like Germany… Read more »
So let’s discuss what is wrong with the rest of the Americas.
YES…
I actually started with an article on Venezuela.
I sympathize with the frustrations that many Latin American peoples feel about people in the U.S. calling themselves “Americans” to the exclusion of all other people in the Americas. I do think English needs something like “USian,” just like there is in Spanish with “estadounidense.” I don’t know if it would ever catch on. (There’s another problem, which is that Mexico is officially “The United States of Mexico,” so you could argue that the USA is not the only “U.S.” in the world.) Let’s be fair, though, because it goes both ways. “Norteamericanos” in Spanish almost exclusively refers to anglos… Read more »
We do have a word for them, that apparently is somewhat offensive only here in the US, Gringo. It is actually an old Spaniard term (16th century), based on Peregringo or person on a pilgrimage who’s native language makes speaking spanish difficult. It was mostly used to discribe people from the british isles. It did not originate from the Mexican-American war, and has no relation to “Green, Go home” or “green goes the lilak”. That’s the problem with the whole “US#1” and the geocentric mentality. They will find a way to say that even words like Gringo originated thanks to… Read more »
I don’t find “gringo” offensive, but I was under the impression that it’s a bad stereotype that Spanish speakers use the word. I thought it was like “honky,” a word that black people don’t really use but a lot of white people think they use it. Generally I prefer “gabacho,” which is I think more specifically a northern Mexican/Tejano/Chicano expression. People from the Southern U.S. would probably be offended by the word “yanqui” (Yankee) to refer to people from the U.S. And, I imagine many Asians and Asian Americans would be offended by the common use of the term “chino”… Read more »
We have allowed fools and con men to turn what was once a Constitutional Republic into a massive, out of control beauracracy that would rival the old Soviet system. Republicans and Democrats alike believe that more government is the solution to every problem, so the problems simply get worse. More Americans lose homes and jobs, more die overseas while countries like Pakistan get billions in foreign aid and corporations get bailouts. It’s time to scrap the whole system and start over.
Instilling a patriotic identity was one of the original reasons for public education. Rhetorical question- what would the author think if critical thinking lead people to positions he didn’t agree with?
#1 eh, a country where you can get bankrupt for being sick doesn’t deserve to call itself number 1. This scene explains more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZFRmVFn7WM
Australia, Norway, and a few other countries exceed the U.S. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/11111111111
Archy, I was going to post the same video….. I hope people watch it.
In Europe we usually think that Norway or Sweden is the best country in the world, because their citizens have the highest standards of living by almost every measure. However there isn’t much difference between the western European liberal democracies.