DeWeese-Boyd 2
and the display of patriotic signs in public buildings (O’Leary and Platt 2001). So
plentiful are these expressions of American unity and allegiance that Robert Putnam
was compelled to revisit his oft-cited thesis that American civic life is waning. In a
recent study, Putnam found that Americans now express an increased trust in
government and a renewed interest in public affairs, leading him to conclude that
American civil society may be on the upswing (2002). But, does this newfound
patriotism really offer much to American political life? Amy Burke contends that our
patriotic responses to September 11 have been merely symbolic—and persistently
individualistic at that (2002). We are, she states, “willing to wave flags but not hold
hands” (2002, 45). Putnam himself found that an increased interest in public affairs did
not actually translate into increased participation in public life. If feelings of unity and
allegiance develop in tandem with increasing levels of trust in government to the extent
that citizens merely trust, rather than participate, then contemporary patriotism might
wind up doing more damage to democracy than good. Consequently, contemporary
patriotism may offer little to reinvigorate American democracy.
Central to this discussion is the notion of patriotism itself. Are the
aforementioned expressions of unity and allegiance the sum and substance of
“patriotism”? Drawing from Montesquieu, C. Douglas Lummis states that patriotism
must be understood as political virtue (1996). At the core of a democratic polity is the
political virtue of her people—i.e., the patriotism of her people. In a democracy, Lummis
argues, patriotism must be understood as “the love that binds a people together, not the
misplaced love of the institutions that dominate the people” (1996, 37). Here democracy
Convention