Scriptorium Daily
Sadly, times have changed enough that almost all of us have been expelled from that particular garden. We will have to make do with superficial knowledge of much more of the world. We must be patriots without being parochial, because for most of us parochialism is too big for our virtue. Parochialism demands a big heart to keep from becoming overly expansive about the glories one will find in one’s own garden. And yet on the narrower and less dangerous road of patriotism checked by internationalism there is certain charm.
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Sadly, it is not missionary kids who mostly lurk the halls of the United Nations. It is not Adam Johnson running the European Union or most of our multinational corporations (yet!). There is a second kind of international man . . . one who loves mankind so much in general that he hates every national expression of humanity mankind has produced.
This international sort has more in common with other internationals than he does with his own country of birth.
He lauds multiculturalism, but he knows no culture well enough to love it. He borrows and choices (mostly the food) from scores of different cultures. He is not multicultural, but self-cultural. He eats no national cuisine; he cries at no anthem, his mother tongue is some Esperanto-pop jargon that he has picked up from ABC-BBC-CNN. The crisis of this week was getting the i-phone and not global terrorism. He has no history, no roots, no lord, and no liberty from the tyrannical demands of self.
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Self-cultural man does not create culture, understand any culture, just loots the “best” of each culture to satisfy his desires. The patriot, the nationalist, acts internationally to protect his nation. The self-cultural man acts to protect those like self, the other self-cultural men.
Real nationalists created the international community to protect the nation states from excesses of patriotism. Internationalism blocked patriotism from becoming jingoism. The real work was done by the nationalist, but international affairs were a necessary medicine to keep the system of nations functioning. (more)
Related article: The ACLU: Enemy of America and Christianity by Rabbi Aryeh Spero (Human Events).
