Obsessive repulsion. I try not to put too much stock into the goings on of niche internet communities. If you look hard enough you can find at least a few people saying or doing just about anything imaginable, and if you’re not careful, you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to find the limits of internet lunacy (there are none). That said, it is possible to glean insights from such spaces, provided you’re able to take a deep dive without losing your sanity. Contrapoints, e.g., is a pro at this.
A few months ago a Twitter account called “Is this what they were dying for?” caught my eye. Nearly all of its tweets are variations on a single theme: a picture of troops landing at Normandy on D-Day with a thought bubble cropped in, and in the thought bubble, some image or video from modern America. The account’s bio asks, simply, “if you told these men that this is what their nations would look like 50 years from hitting the beach, would they have still fought?” The question is strictly rhetorical; whoever runs the account has an answer in mind, and that answer is “no.” It’s obvious to this tweeter — and, presumably, to many of his/her 12,600 followers — that few would have risked their lives to defend a country bound for lawlessness, leftism, family fragmentation, corporate wokeness, sexual deviancy, a breakdown of traditional gender roles, a turn away from conventional beauty standards, the rise of a big tech oligarchy, vaccine mandates, etc., etc., etc.
How, you might be wondering, did I come across this account? I stumbled upon it while doing my deep dive into the Postliberal Order — specifically, when I saw the following tweet, which has since been deleted:
That tweet is one of the reasons I think it’s worth grappling with this account. There’s nothing especially significant about amassing 12,600 followers on Twitter; plenty of accounts that don’t seem worth thinking much about have amassed far more followers. But not many of those accounts have been called “brilliant” by a Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Still, receiving praise from a prominent academic still doesn’t necessarily make the account worthy of serious inquiry. The questions it raises must also be of interest. This account raises the question of patriotism’s logical extreme — a love of country so profound that one is willing to risk life and limb for it. Of course, one can question how often soldiers’ sacrifices are motivated by unadulterated love of country. Some lines from a Tom Waits song come to mind:
I'm not fighting for justice
I am not fighting for freedom
I am fighting for my life and
Another day in the world here
I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky ones come
Home, on the day after tomorrow
But surely some of those who fight are spurred on by an authentic patriotism. And such patriotism is on the minds of many as the war in Ukraine rages on. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accomplished the impossible, winning admiration from disparate Twitter factions typically at each others’ throats:
When was the last time a National Review staffer, a Washington Post pundit, a former Republican presidential nominee, and a former CBS news anchor all sung the praises of a world leader in unison?1 That’s not a rhetorical question — I’d be genuinely curious to hear some answers. But I’m more interested in the praises being sung than in the unity of the voices singing. Patriotism, bravery, heroism, courage. An overwhelming majority of people are awe-struck by Zelensky’s apparent willingness to die for the country he loves.
As I’ve been looking on at Zelensky’s eclectic crowd of admirers, Deneen’s tweet has kept creeping back into my mind. He, and all who share his affinity for tweets like this…
…seem to be suggesting that, were Russia to invade America, our country might not be worth fighting for. Or, interpreted more charitably, they seem to be asking: in a country where so many have lost their moral compasses entirely, where Truth and Beauty are under relentless assault, where school children in drag give lap dances to staff, for God’s sake… how many citizens would be willing to stand and fight like Zelensky and the Ukrainians?
I think there’s a psychological phenomenon at work here that underlies a lot of the more radical elements of contemporary American politics, left and right: an obsessive focus on the most repulsive aspects of our country — whatever one considers “most repulsive” — leads to a failure of love. How can we love America when, from 1619 right up to the present day, its story has been rife with injustice against black people? How can we love America when we look back over its history of war crimes and atrocities, from Sand Creek to drone strikes in Syria? How can we love America when 74,000,000 Americans voted for Trump, or when a majority approves of Roe v. Wade, or when only a slim majority can name all three branches of government? Whether we’re repulsed by racial injustice, or imperial aggression, or sexually predatory celebrity politicians, or abortion, or ignorance… there’s something for just about anyone to be repulsed by, and in a post-internet world, it’s now possible to summon disgust with the click of a button.
If you want to fixate upon all that’s ugly in the American story, you can do so, constantly, until you die. Before the internet, we were blessed with a scarcity of stimuli that offended our sensibilities. The internet brought the world to our fingertips, which was incredible, but for those with the moral equivalent of a morbid fascination, it was also a curse. The temptation to read about, watch, or listen to those who defy our values is overwhelming. So many horrible people saying and doing so many horrible things… madness has a gravitational pull.
And if we’re perpetually focused on all that’s bad about America, then would we really feel up to defending it if some hostile power stormed our shores? If Deneen’s beloved Twitter account thinks the soldiers at Normandy wouldn’t have fought had they known what we’ve become, then why would we fight now knowing full well what we are?
Irrational love. More lyrics from that Tom Waits song come to mind:
Its so hard and its cold here
And I'm tired of taking orders
And I miss old Rockford town
Up by the Wisconsin border
What I miss you won't believe
Shoveling snow and raking leaves
And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow
I close my eyes every nite
And I dream that I can hold you
They fill us full of lies, everyone buys
Bout what it means to
Be a soldier, I still don't
Know how I'm supposed to feel bout
All the blood that's been spilled
Will God on this throne
Get me back home
On the day after tomorrow
One of those lies, I think, is that a soldier is someone who fights for values. Values might be one thing a soldier fights for, but I don’t think they’re ever the only thing — nor should they be. People are more than their values, and a country is more than its peoples’ shared values. Love of neighbor, love of country… these are meant to transcend values. When you love old Rockford town, you love all of it… right on down to the leaves you rake and the snow you shovel. And even if you’re an uncompromising pacifist who believes war is never justified — you’d meet invasion with surrender — this train of thought is still relevant for you. You may not fight literally, which is to say violently, for what you love, but you still try, in some other capacity, to change the world.
G.K. Chesterton once asked whether we could hate the world enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing. I hope I’m overestimating the number of Americans who fall short of loving their country enough to think it worth changing — one never can be sure how seriously to take thoughts and feelings expressed from behind a phone screen in the safety of one’s living room. That said, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think I was right to take these particular thoughts and feelings seriously, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about a growing failure of love. Granted, Patrick Deneen does want to change his country, in a way, but not because he thinks it’s worth changing; rather, he thinks it belongs on the ash heap of history, and should be replaced altogether. A similar sentiment is shared, e.g., by Ibram X. Kendi, though for radically different reasons, and with a radically different replacement in mind.
And yet there are plenty among us capable2 of looking at the whole of America, and feeling intense loathing for some parts of it, while still summoning the strength to love the whole — including the parts we loathe. People who, violently or not, are willing to fight for Patrick Deneen and Ibram X. Kendi, Alex Jones and AOC, MAGA Republicans and Bernie Bros, QAnoners and Russiagaters, Tom and Chet Hanks, drag queens, paleocons, flat earthers, pajama classers, anti-vaxxers and double maskers, CHAZ and trucker convoys. There is no logic in this. Usually illogicality makes me uncomfortable. But here’s to boundless love devoid of logic.
While this unity is an admittedly pleasing change of pace, I think a healthy skepticism is in order — anytime a broad coalition of powerful folks are parroting the same narrative, alarm bells should go off. See here and here for two pieces that treat the problem of wartime propaganda & dis/misinformation thoughtfully.
Is it a matter of capability? Surely Deneen and Kendi would deny this: we’re capable of loving America, they’d say, we just choose not to because it’s immoral to love a country so wicked. I tend to think of them as exhibiting a failure of love, not a rejection of it. But if it’s a rejection, rather than a failure, I think it’s an immoral one. And if it’s a failure, insofar as it’s a willful failure, well, that’s immoral too.