Page:Patriotismchrist00tols.djvu/41

Rh Others the authorities desired to welcome. And just the same thing has taken place in England, America, Germany, and Italy.

What is called patriotism in our time is, on the one hand, only a certain disposition of mind, constantly produced and sustained in the minds of the people in a direction desired by the existing Government by schools, religion, and a subsidised Press; and on the other hand it is a temporary excitement of the lowest stratum, morally and intellectually, of the people, produced by special means by the ruling classes, and finally acclaimed as the permanent expression of the people's will.

The patriotism of States oppressed by a foreign Power presents no exception. It is equally unnatural to the working masses, and artificially induced by the higher classes.

"But if the common people have no sentiment of patriotism it is because they have not yet developed this elevated feeling natural to every educated man. If they do not possess this nobility of sentiment, it must be cultivated in them. And it is this the Government does."

So say, generally, the ruling classes, with such assurance that patriotism is a noble feeling, and that the simple populace who are ignorant of it, think themselves, in consequence at fault, and try to persuade themselves that they really possess it, or at least pretend to have it.

But what is this elevated sentiment which, according to the opinonopinion [sic] of the ruling classes, must be educated in the people?

The sentiment, in its simplest definition, is merely the preference for one's own country or nation above the country or nation of any one else; a sentiment perfectly expressed in the German patriotic song, "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles," in which one need only substitute for the first two words, "Russland," "Frankreich," "Italien," or the name of any other country, to obtain a formula of the elevated sentiment of patriotism for that country.

It is quite possible that this sentiment is both of use to, and to be desired by the Government, and of service to the unity of the State, but one must see that this sentiment is by no means an elevated one, but on the contrary, very stupid and immoral. Stupid, because if every country were to consider itself superior to others, it is evident that all but one would be in error, and immoral because it leads all