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The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights: An uneasy entanglement and
the contribution of critical pedagogy
Article in Educational Philosophy and Theory · August 2014
DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2013.803238
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The Teaching of Patriotism and Human
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the contribution of critical pedagogy
Michalinos Zembylas
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Department of Education , Open University of Cyprus
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Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2013.803238
The Teaching of Patriotism and Human
Rights: An uneasy entanglement and the
contribution of critical pedagogy
MICHALINOS ZEMBYLAS
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Department of Education, Open University of Cyprus
Abstract
This article examines the moral, political and pedagogical tensions that are created from the
entanglement of patriotism and human rights, and sketches a response to these tensions in the
context of critical education. The article begins with a brief review of different forms of patriotism, especially as those relate to human rights, and explains why some of these forms may
be morally or politically valuable. Then, it offers a brief overview of human rights critiques,
especially from the perspectives of Foucault, critical legal studies and postcolonial theory, and
emphasizes that foundationalist perspectives of human rights need to be constantly contested.
The next part of the article discusses how to overcome issues of incompatibility between
patriotism and human rights. The final part proposes that a ‘rapprochement’ between patriotism and human rights in the context of critical education has to take into consideration that
patriotic feelings (as a form of love for one’s country) constitute a particular form of
‘emotional education’. As such, the teaching of both patriotism and human rights would
benefit from the notion of ‘critical pedagogies of emotion’ that interrogates the emotional
commitments of patriotism and human rights and the consequences of these commitments.
Keywords: patriotism, human rights, critical pedagogy, emotion
Introduction
During the past two decades, there has been a vigorous debate in educational theory
and philosophy about whether or not the teaching of patriotism has any place in
schools (e.g. White, 1996, 2001; Callan, 1997, 2006; Archard, 1999; Gutmann,
2002; Ben-Borath, 2006, 2007; Brighouse, 2006; Hand & Pearce, 2009; Merry,
2009; Hand, 2011; Kodelja, 2011). There are multiple dimensions to the question as
to whether or not some form of patriotic education is valuable or even acceptable, not
the least of which is dependent on how patriotism is defined (Kodelja, 2011). In
general, the debate goes like this. On the one hand, there are those who argue that
Ó 2013 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
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patriotic education has a place in schools, because it teaches children and youth the
virtues and benefits of membership of a community, nation or patria. On the other
hand, the opponents raise numerous moral and political concerns about patriotic education that are relevant to the connection between patriotism and violence or intolerance, the fear of indoctrination, and the way that patriotism sometimes places a
person’s ties to his or her community beyond any sort of criticism.
The issue of patriotic education becomes even further complicated if it is considered in relation to human rights and human rights education (e.g. Baxi, 1997; Evans,
1998; Douzinas, 2000; Ignatieff, 2001; Mutua, 2002; Tibbitts, 2002; Donnelly, 2003;
Keet, 2010, 2012; Bajaj, 2011). This entanglement between patriotism and human
rights creates a tension over whether the two can really be reconciled (Vincent,
2009). If patriotism denotes a particular loyalty to a country or community, and
human rights transcend this particularity and apply to all humans regardless of their
particular loyalties, then how is it possible to reconcile the two? A ‘conventional’
answer, as Vincent (2009) explains, is to say that patriotism and human rights are not
compatible on either a moral or legal level.1 But is this the only possible response to
the question about the compatibility of patriotism and human rights? And so what?
That is, what are the implications for the teaching of patriotism and human rights?
The premise on which this article rests——i.e. that some form of patriotic
education is valuable under circumstances that will be outlined later——is not new;
that premise is not the most important contribution of this article. The more important contribution is the analysis and sorting through of various arguments centred on
the question of whether human rights can be reconciled with patriotism, to figure out
how those arguments operate to ground a critical pedagogy that combines both patriotic and human rights discourses. This article examines, then, the moral, political and
pedagogical tensions that are created from the entanglement of patriotism and human
rights and sketches a response to these tensions in the context of critical education.
This project merits attention for two reasons: first, despite numerous critiques, human
rights discourse remains important in the world and therefore it is interesting to
explore the tensions between the values of human rights and patriotism, especially in
conflict-troubled societies in which these tensions are further intensified (see also
Bekerman & Zembylas, 2012; Zembylas, 2012a); and secondly, it is worthwhile for
pedagogical purposes to explore the ways in which critical education might respond to
these tensions, while taking into consideration various complexities of the uneasy
entanglement between human rights education and patriotic education.2
The article begins with a brief review of different forms of patriotism, especially as
those relate to human rights, and explains why some of these forms may be morally
or politically valuable. Then, it offers a brief overview of human rights critiques, especially from the perspectives of Foucault, critical legal studies and postcolonial theory,
and emphasizes that foundationalist perspectives of human rights need to be constantly contested. The next part of the article discusses how to overcome issues of
incompatibility between patriotism and human rights. The final part proposes that a
‘rapprochement’ between patriotism and human rights in the context of critical education has to take into consideration that patriotic feelings (as a form of love for one’s
country) constitute a particular form of ‘emotional education’ (Hand, 2011). As such,
The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
3
the teaching of both patriotism and human rights would benefit from the notion of
‘critical pedagogies of emotion’ (Zembylas, 2012b) that interrogates the emotional
commitments of patriotism and human rights and the consequences of these
commitments.
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Different Forms of Patriotism
First, it is important to recognize that there are different forms of patriotism, some of
which may not be rejected as morally or politically unacceptable (Kodelja, 2011). A
detailed analysis of all the different forms of patriotism cannot be undertaken in the
short space available here, but I will offer a brief overview of some important forms
and especially ‘what’ I take patriotism (and patriotic education) to be. Patriotism is
closely tied to the state (which is often associated with a government) or patria (which
indicates one’s native place, the fatherland); in ordinary use, patriotism denotes the
feelings of attachment (love) to one’s country (or the nation-state). However, this definition may not always be sufficient (Kodelja, 2011). As Nathanson (1993) argues, in
addition to love (or feelings of attachment) for one’s country, patriotism also involves
a sense of personal identification with the country, special concern for its well-being;
there is, in other words, some sense of ‘particularism’ in patriotic feelings. In this
article, then, I take patriotism to be tied to the feelings of love and attachment for
one’s country and the emotions of personal identification with the country.
As a highly ‘particularist’ feeling attached to a state, patriotism seems at first hand
to be in tension with the ‘universalism’ implicit in the notion of human rights
(Vincent, 2009). According to Carl Schmitt (1996), what distinguishes the state is the
friends/enemies dichotomy, that is, how the formation of the state is grounded in the
‘we’ and ‘they’ distinction. Given that this dichotomy does not have any bearing at
the level of human rights, a number of moral and political issues can be raised concerning the relation between patriotism and human rights. On the one hand, patriotism is bound by one’s loyalty to the state, thus it ‘presents a discrete particularist
understanding of morality, as linked intimately to communal groups’ (Vincent, 2009,
p. 351). On the other hand, human rights are regarded as having a universal or cosmopolitan dimension; they are moral entities or instrumental of international law that
are clearly independent from the particularist definition of patriotism.3 How can the
particularist understanding of patriotism, then, be compatible with the universalist
framework of human rights?
To provide a proper answer to this question, we must look first at the different
kinds of patriotism that exist (Vincent, 2009; Kodelja, 2011). Understanding patriotism in narrow terms——e.g. as uncritical and monolithic feelings of love and attachment to one’s country——would certainly minimize any possibility for a productive
rapprochement between patriotism and human rights. Thus, for example, Vincent
(2009) distinguishes between ‘strong’ and ‘moderate’ patriotisms; similarly, Kodelja
(2011), who follows Nathanson (1993) and Primoratz (2002), refers to ‘extreme’ and
‘moderate’ patriotisms, whereas Westheimer (2006), who follows Lummis (1996) and
the work of Howard Zinn, talks about ‘authoritarian’ and ‘democratic’ patriotism.
All of these distinctions——i.e. strong versus moderate, extreme versus moderate,
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authoritarian versus democratic——refer to different forms of patriotism along a
continuum that has two ends. At one end, the ‘strong’ version of patriotism proposes
that ‘patriotic loyalty is the sole source of meaningful moral claims’ (Vincent, 2009,
p. 352). Kodelja (2011, p. 134) adds that, ‘Extreme patriotism does not only involve
an exclusive concern for the interests of one’s own country and compatriots, but it
also requires one to promote one’s country’s interests by every means and at the
expense of other countries and their people’. Also, Westheimer (2006) points out that
authoritarian patriotism is grounded in the belief that one’s country is inherently
superior to others; authoritarian patriotism asks for unquestioning loyalty to a cause
(often determined by a centralized leader or leading group) and thus is blind to shortcomings and social discord. The strong, extreme or authoritarian version of patriotism
has been characterized as morally and politically dangerous and destabilizing
(Primoratz, 2002), a position that I share in this article.
At the other end, ‘moderate’ versions of patriotism try to avoid the strong moral
and political claims made by extreme patriotism and make attempts to bridge cosmopolitan and universal claims with communitarian motifs. As Primoratz (2007, p. 25)
explains, moderate patriotism tries to avoid the pitfalls of both ‘cosmopolitanism that
allows for no attachment and loyalty to one’s country and compatriots, and extreme
patriotism that rejects universal moral considerations (except those that have been
necessarily included into one’s country’s morality)’. Moderate variants of patriotism——such as the four variants that are briefly discussed below (i.e. neoclassical
republican patriotism, moderate communitarian patriotism, moderate liberal patriotism and constitutional patriotism)——provide some possibilities to reconcile patriotic
feelings with universal moral principles such as human rights (Vincent, 2009).
First, neoclassical republican patriotism (e.g. Viroli, 1995, 2001) focuses on the
notions of political liberty and civic virtue. In this variant, patriotism is distinguished
from nationalism and is understood as a love of political liberty and the strengthening
of civic consciousness rather than the love of a language or ethnicity. The enemies of
patriotism, Viroli says, are authoritarianism, tyranny, despotism and oppression. As
he explains, for neoclassical republicans ‘love of country is a charitable love of the
republic and of its citizens. It is an attachment to the political values of republican
liberty and to the culture based upon them. As such, it is a theoretical alternative to
both civic and ethnic nationalism’ (Viroli, 1998, p. 187). Thus, whereas patriotism
emphasizes a free way of life within a republic, nationalism focuses on imposing
homogeneity and cultural unity.
Secondly, moderate communitarian patriotism (e.g. Taylor, 1997) attempts to
bridge republicanism and communitarianism. Patriotism is understood as a strong
sense of identification with the polity. Being a citizen, according to Taylor, is prior
to other forms of identity. Although he admits that it is difficult to distinguish
patriotism from nationalism, he nevertheless argues that it is important to do so.
Thus, what distinguishes nationalism from patriotism, according to him, is nationalism’s claim for the existence of a ‘prepolitical’ identity. Patriotism has no such
prepolitical reference; rather, patriotism is always politically defined——as in the
American and French revolutions, neither of which had any nationalist character,
according to Taylor.
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The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
5
Thirdly, moderate liberal patriotism (e.g. Nathanson, 1993) sees certain liberal
universalist moral constraints acting upon patriotic goals. In other words, it is argued
that too much patriotism or too much liberalism is not considered a good thing;
therefore, patriotism should be somewhere in the middle (Vincent, 2009). Nathanson’s argument, according to Vincent, is that liberal universalism should restrain local
solidarities and membership loyalties.
Finally, the fourth version of moderate patriotism is Habermas’s (1992),
Habermas’s (1998) notion of constitutional patriotism. This idea implies allegiance to
the constitution as the basis of patriotism. Patriotic loyalty, then, is to universalistic
values (such as liberty and democracy) that are embodied by the constitution. Habermas theorizes the idea of constitutional patriotism in the background of the tragic
consequences of German nationalism in Second World War. Constitutional patriotism
disconnects patriotism from the tradition of nationalism and its national and cultural
attachments and provides a solid base for democratic states that are cultural and ethnically heterogeneous (Kodelja, 2011). Unlike the other versions of moderate patriotism outlined above, Habermas (2001) is specifically concerned with formulating a
rapprochement between patriotism and human rights (Vincent, 2009). However,
there is a serious challenge to this effort that comes from the fact that human rights
‘protect individual persons only insofar as the latter belong to a particular legal
community——normally a nation-state’ (Habermas, 2001, p. 118). In other words, the
realization of human rights takes place within judicial particularist conditions.
Habermas tries to resolve this tension by arguing that an individual exists prior to
all socialization and thus comes into the world already equipped with innate rights. In
other words, Habermas attempts to develop a universalistic moral foundation of
human rights that institutionalizes the communicative conditions of dialogue and
human rationality. Habermas’s notion of constitutional patriotism is ‘the via media
for reconciling law and the state with the moral universality of human rights’
(Vincent, 2009, p. 354). It is human rights that make the exercise of sovereignty possible and reasonable, as Vincent explains and adds further that Habermas offers an
imaginative resolution to the tension between patriotism and human rights ‘by arguing
that the law (as embodied in the constitution) needs to be recognized as intrinsically
right. Thus, insofar as the constitution embodies law which is recognized as right, it
can exemplify the soul of universal human rights’ (Vincent, p. 355). For Habermas,
then, constitutional patriotism reconciles the particular and the universal in that the
constitutional patriot is the one who expresses patriotic loyalty to a human rightsbased constitution. I will come back to this later, because there is a problem with this
argument, as Vincent rightly points out, in that it ‘tends either to juridify morality or
moralize positive law’ (Vincent, p. 355).
The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of patriotic education are directly related to ‘how’ patriotism is understood in different settings. For example, if patriotism is taken to be
‘blind’, then the excessive emphasis on one’s own community devoid of any criticism
will be more likely to contradict human rights concerns. However, a more ‘moderate’
understanding of patriotism——e.g. along Habermas’s thinking——may leave some
possibilities open for a different teaching of patriotic education. In the following part
of the article, I want to engage with human rights and some of their critiques to
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Michalinos Zembylas
show that there are additional problems with the (dominant) universalistic
conceptualization of human rights that further complicate the rapprochement with
patriotism, and therefore add further tensions to the prospects of combining patriotic
education and human rights education.
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Human Rights Critiques
Since the adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) in 1948, the rhetoric of human rights has become almost universal and they
have been ‘elevated to political correctness where a denial of them taints the innocent
philosophical sceptic’ (Knowles, 2003, p. 133). In fact, as Baxi (1997, p. 1) observes,
‘the language of rights nearly replaces all other moral languages’ and ‘emerges as the
only ideology-in-the-making, enabling both legitimation and delegitimation of power
and anticipatory critiques of human rights features’. However, although we live in an
‘age of rights’ (Baxi, 1997), the extent of human rights violations all over the world
cast doubts in whether the rhetoric of human rights remains simply a universal moral
ideology (Keet, 2009).
The universalistic conception of human rights, exemplified in numerous declarations since 1948, can be traced to Enlightenment ideas and the development of
nation-states such as the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens (Donnelly, 2003). Whether it is
Locke’s and Rousseau’s conceptions of rights stemming from natural law or Kant’s
emphasis on rationality as the basis of rights, human rights are essentialized and end
up being codified in juridical terms. Enlightenment thinking, particularly its assumptions about a universal human nature and the sovereign subject, has been critiqued
for its ethnocentric Western notions (Douzinas, 2000). The notion of universal
human rights has been also critiqued by postmodern and poststructuralist theories
(Keet, 2010).
Postmodern and poststructuralist theorizing engages in a political and cultural critique of human rights as a universalist and essentialist conception. Within postmodern
and poststructuralist thinking (although certainly not monolithic), there is an exploration of how power and knowledge are situated within human rights discourses (Evans,
1998). For example, the claim that Eurocentric norms and values are universal
delegitimizes what is different and non-European; thus, interpretations of human
rights are not neutral but very much embedded in cultural and political assumptions
(Mutua, 2002). As Mutua (p. 10) writes, ‘The grand narrative of human rights contains a subtext which depicts an epochal contest pitting savages, on the one hand,
against victims and saviours, on the other’.
Within the poststructuralist mode of thinking, Foucault’s (1994) contribution is
particularly valuable. Foucault places emphasis on power relations and discourses as
vehicles of truth. Given that within a Foucauldian theoretical frame truth and power
are mirror images of one another, human rights truths are determined by power relations and therefore rights become ideological. In fact, it is argued that an overarching
ideological framework based on human rights has been used by Western states or by
Western imperialism to dominate or colonize the world (Hamilton, 2003). Ignatieff
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The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
7
(2001) also acknowledges that the inconsistent application of the provisions of human
rights by Western states undermines the legitimacy of human rights and elevates them
into humanism idolatry.
Foucault associates human rights with humanism and its regulatory regimes of
discipline (Hunt, 2004). As Hunt (p. 42) explains: ‘[F]or Foucault rights in no way
offer protection or resistance to the ever-increasing disciplines of the body or regulation of the population; they are part and parcel of the new disciplinary regime. If individuals did not have rights, then prison——the legal elimination of personal
freedom——could not function as a punishment’. Foucault is particularly critical of
how rights, expressed in legal terms, create a disciplinary and regulated society by
supporting modern power. This happens for two reasons, as Pickett (2000) explains.
The first is that ‘the set of institutions that rights help to legitimate, the laws, courts,
police, and prisons charged with protecting citizens’ rights, function as a system of
domination’ (Pickett, p. 405). In other words, Foucault argues that rights essentially
reinforce the basic tactics of power and thus are integral to the existing system of
‘brutality’. The second reason is that rights contribute to the ‘normalization’ of
individuals. As Pickett maintains, the modern, rights-bearing individual is himself or
herself a product of modern power. Foucault rejects views of people as bearers of a
‘true’ nature or reason; such views, on which most universal declarations of human
rights are based, reinforce the process of normalization (see also Manokha, 2009).
It is important to note that Foucault himself admitted that his critique ‘does not
mean that we have to get rid of what we call human rights’ (Hunt, 2004, p. 42).
However, where he speaks positively of rights (in his later work), Foucault suggests a
new form of right, ‘one which must indeed be anti-disciplinarian’ (Gordon, 1994,
p. xxxi, emphasis added). This means that ‘concepts of rights can exist and be created
without requiring foundational juridical premises: they can be created and affirmed
through invention and struggle’ (Gordon, p. xxxi). As Foucault explains elsewhere,
‘We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of
individuality [linked to the state] which has been imposed on us for several
centuries now’ (Foucault, 1983, p. 216). If this new form of right is to ‘indeed be
anti-disciplinarian’, it must be capable of blocking disciplinary tactics such as hierarchical observation and surveillance and should encourage new ethical self-formations
(Pickett, 2000).
In general, Foucault’s views make two important contributions to discussions about
human rights. First, by rejecting an essential human nature, Foucault opens spaces
for acknowledging that foundationalist categories need to be constantly contested and
not taken for granted. As noted above, rights function where power does and therefore legal ‘truths’ are always connected with power; that is, rights are linked to a set
of rules and power relations that embody those rules. This idea implies that human
rights may be viewed as contingent, unstable and incomplete, always situated in webs
of power relations. Invoking new rights, therefore, means the creation of new rights
against existing disciplinary mechanisms. Secondly, Foucault’s arguments point to the
limitations of the juridical form of rights. This idea does not imply that all power is
evil or all regulations must be rejected as unacceptable. Instead, Foucault warns us
not to uncritically accept the ‘juridico-discursive’ language of legitimation. The
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deployment of a juridical form of rights is, for Foucault, like everything else, not good
or evil in itself; it is to be constantly critiqued as dangerous in establishing certain
‘fictions’. This critique also encourages us not to underestimate the ethical issues
involved in human rights.
Following the conclusions of a Foucauldian analysis, another perspective——that of
critical legal studies——views human rights as constructions that fit the liberal conception of law (Ward, 2004). Critical legal studies acknowledge that law is inseparable
from politics because law is a regulatory system that reflects how power is exercised in
a particular context. Thus, just like Foucault, there is scepticism about law and rights
because those are considered to sustain hegemonic social, economic and political
structures and power asymmetries. In a sense, then, critical legal studies provide
critique to the essentialist and objectivist notions of human rights and go as far as to
argue that human rights are ‘illusions’ and ‘myths’ (Ward, 2004, p. 145).
Deconstructing the objectivist language of rights, it is argued, creates opportunities to
disrupt the social, economic and political structures that sustain inequalities.
Finally, from the perspective of postcolonial theory, theorists like Bhabha (1999),
Chakrabarty (2000) and Spivak (2004) highlight the influence of colonial thinking
and practices on Western political concepts such as citizenship and human rights. In
particular, Bhabha’s (1999) work acknowledges how rights and obligations constitute
modernist myths that perpetuate colonial power relations. Thus, he questions the global human rights discourse, framed in legal terms, as a tool with which colonialism is
sustained. Similarly, Chakrabarty (2000) analyses how Western political concepts
such as human rights are neither stable nor singular in their meaning, contrary to how
they are often presented by ideological discourses of modernity. Spivak (2004) argues
that a critical historical analysis of human rights in the past 150 years reveals how
human rights are articulated within the language frame of the hegemonic culture. As
she writes: ‘The idea of human rights, in other words, may carry within itself the
agenda of a kind of social Darwinism——the fittest must shoulder the burden of
righting the wrongs of the unfit——and the possibility of an alibi’ (Spivak, p. 524).
This brief overview of human rights critiques illustrates the intense criticism of universalist conceptions of human rights. Yet, far from rejecting human rights and its
juridical forms altogether, it is important to acknowledge how human rights are historically constructed and contestable (Christie, 2010). A critical posture towards
juridical forms of human rights, as opposed to accepting modernist ‘myths’ and ‘fictions’ (Keet, 2010), opens up spaces for the ‘continual re-construction’ (Christie,
2010, p. 5) of human rights. This idea implies that the theoretical assumptions and
implications of human rights need to be constantly interrogated in order not to be put
in terms of hegemonic thinking and practice. This position provides valuable argumentation to justify the idea that despite critiques, human rights discourse can still
provide a useful approach to moral education that addresses issues of injustice,
inequality and wrong-doing. In light of the moral and political tensions identified in
the entanglement between patriotism and human rights, I move on to explore the
possibility of overcoming some of these tensions; then, the last part of the article deals
with the possible openings that may be created for promoting a critical pedagogy of
patriotism and human rights that takes into consideration these tensions.
The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
9
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Overcoming the Incompatibility Between Patriotism and Human Rights:
Possible Openings for Critical Education
So far, it has been argued that more moderate forms of patriotism, especially
Habermas’s notion of constitutional patriotism, may formulate a rapprochement in
the tension between patriotism and human rights. The problem with Habermas’s
argument, however, is that it revolves around a binary of law and morality (Vincent,
2009). As Vincent (p. 355) explains, ‘basic constitutional law becomes an object for
genuine patriotic loyalty because it embodies universal notions of rightness (rightness
qua human rights for Habermas)’. These universal notions of rightness can be deeply
problematic, as shown earlier. Furthermore, what is missing in Habermas’s argument,
continues Vincent (p. 355), is ‘the “reality” of most constitutions and further the historical and political context in which they exist. […] In Habermas we find an
abstracted idealized constitution [that] is viewed as a regulative ideal’. Just as it has
been shown how human rights are often codified in juridical terms, Habermas’s
notion of constitutional patriotism is also predominantly juridical rather than political.
Vincent (2009) suggests that the central flaw of juridical arguments (such as
Habermas’s argument) is that in reality the constitution itself is historically contingent
and integral to the state and politics. Therefore, he proposes what he calls unpatriotic
patriotism in an effort to utilize certain dimensions of the constitutional patriotism
argument, while making a linkage with human rights. The notion of ‘unpatriotic patriotism’ is grounded in the idea that politics implies plurality and uncertainty and thus
patriotism——as well as human rights, as a core component of politics——can be
understood as a form of loyalty to uncertainty and plurality. As Vincent explains:
[P]atriotism implies a commitment to an ongoing uncertainty, critical hesitancy and willingness to adjust. The character of a civil state tradition is
thus open, self-questioning and incomplete. Consequently, any substantive
values associated with patriotism (and such values are continuously thrown
up in debate in civil states) are always subject to uncertainty and criticism.
[…] To be loyal to politics and civil statehood, as plurality and uncertainty,
is to be continuously and potentially unpatriotic or disloyal to the substantive loyalties that many might consider crucial. This disloyalty I consider a
deeper loyalty. Thus, I characterize it as unpatriotic patriotism. (Vincent,
2009, p. 358, original emphasis)
Merry’s (2009) use of the term ‘critical patriotism’ in the context of education is
essentially an argument for enacting ‘unpatriotic patriotism’ in schools. ‘Loyal patriotism’, according to Merry, asks students and teachers to often subscribe to a false or
misguided sense of history and a blind loyalty to current political leadership and its
policies. The cultivation of loyal patriotism in schools, then, is likely to promote, ‘a
myopic understanding both of one’s national history as well as its contemporary role
in a globalized society; an unhealthy attitude of superiority relative to other cultures
and polities; [and] a coerced (rather than freely given) sense of attachment to one’s
homeland’ (Merry, 2009, p. 379). On the contrary, critical patriotism embraces a different kind of loyalty to the country, a loyalty to plurality and uncertainty that extends
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not only ‘to all citizens irrespective of one’s color, sexual orientation, creed or political
affiliation’ but also to ‘those outside of one’s borders’ (Merry, p. 379) on the basis of
human rights claims.4
Importantly, this loyalty to human plurality and uncertainty implies an emotional
commitment to constitutionality and human rights which form the historical and political context of plurality and uncertainty. In other words, the entanglement of patriotism and human rights in the form of unpatriotic or critical patriotism entails a
continuous critical interrogation of the emotional attachments and loyalties that one
constructs about civic statehood and human rights. The pedagogical space of this
entanglement, then, is conceived as an area of continuous deliberation and negotiation that does not ignore one’s emotional attachments to any idea(l)s such as human
rights or civic state. This is the pedagogical ground for my understanding of
unpatriotic or critical patriotism, namely, a space that embodies an emotional culture
of critical possibility for both love of one’s country and human rights concerns. But
how is this critical possibility related to emotional commitments for an ‘alternative’
entanglement between patriotism and human rights?
First, it is important to acknowledge a fundamental underlying assumption, that is,
how the teaching of patriotism (as love of one’s country) denotes ‘a certain kind of
emotional attachment to a certain kind of object’ (Hand, 2011, p. 329). If patriotism
is love of one’s country, Hand argues, the attempt to promote it in schools must
count as a form of ‘emotional education’.5 This idea supports the argument that if
some form of patriotism is considered acceptable——such as the case with ‘critical
patriotism’——there is nevertheless the need for such teaching to be questioning of the
emotional complexities involved (e.g. the fact that some individuals and groups may
subscribe to ‘strong’ feelings of patriotism, while they are not keen on recognizing
human rights for others). A ‘moderate’ version of patriotism that is critical of the
emotional attachments constructed for one’s country may be the only pragmatic solution, especially in situations in which ‘strong’ versions of patriotism are strongly advocated by various social and political groups in schools and the broader society. This is
not an argument that patriotic education ought to be taught because it has internal
value; rather, it is a strategic choice that might be used as a point of departure to
interrogate strong versions of patriotism from within.
For example, consider the case of patriotic education in conflict-troubled
societies (Zembylas, 2012a); the teaching of patriotism in such contexts may be
non-negotiable for some powerful national or religious groups that, more often
than not, have one-sided views about human rights. Under these circumstances,
then, it may be a strategic and pragmatic move to take a middle-ground response
to calls for extreme patriotism by these groups and advocate a moderate and critical form of patriotic education and human rights education, instead of adopting an
equally ‘extreme’ position (i.e. the rejection of any form of patriotic education in
this context) that may not lead to anything productive. As shown from experience
in divided societies, it may indeed be more realistic to adopt a moderate type of
patriotic and human rights education as a first step (see also Bekerman & Zembylas, 2012). A moderate and critical version of patriotic education, along with a reasonable conception of human rights——and hence a reasonable pedagogy to teach
The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
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it——may be worth arguing for, if an educational system cannot avoid teaching
some form of patriotic education for political reasons or if educational authorities
believe that there are indeed moral reasons for promoting critical patriotism. The
teaching of a critical conception of human rights would appeal to some kind of
critical patriotic framework in education; this approach could be a powerful strategy under the conditions outlined in conflict-troubled societies: a strategy that
could respond moderately to the concerns of all sides who may push for extreme
solutions. The question is which kind of pedagogy could respond productively to
the challenges of a critical understanding of patriotism and human rights. The last
part of the article attempts to address this question.
The Contribution of ‘Critical Pedagogies of Emotion’
Over the past two decades, scholars in critical pedagogy have developed a rich and
compelling body of work that interrogates unequal social structures and power
relations within society and schools and aims at empowering students and teachers to
disrupt hegemonic forces and their consequences. Some of this scholarship addresses
critical pedagogy as a site of emotional engagement, that is, as a pedagogical space that
enables students and teachers to locate and analyse their own affective experiences
and forms of knowing within broader understandings of social structures (Ellsworth,
1989; Boler, 1999; Worsham, 2001; Lindquist, 2004; Yoon, 2005; Stenberg, 2011;
Zembylas, 2012b). This scholarship foregrounds emotion as a sociopolitical discourse
and practice that constitutes a valuable resource in the struggle against hegemonic
forces such as extreme forms of patriotism (Zembylas & Boler, 2002; Boler &
Zembylas, 2003).
The notion of ‘critical pedagogies of emotion’ (Zembylas, 2012b) highlights the
importance of foregrounding rather than backgrounding the complexities of a person’s
emotional commitment to his or her community while paying attention to human
rights concerns. Working from the assumption that critical pedagogy must engage the
difficult emotional terrain of patriotism and its entanglement with human rights, I
argue that critical pedagogies of emotion——in the plural, because there are potentially
several manifestations of such pedagogies in different social and political contexts——help students and teachers to acknowledge the emotional power and tenacity
of their commitment to patriotism and human rights, interrogating how those emotions may often be implicated in serving exclusionary, conservative and uncritical
ends. The aim of these pedagogies is to challenge moralistic discourses of patriotism
(e.g. blind patriotism) and voyeuristic or sentimentalized discourses of human rights
that often prevent the enactment of critical compassion and solidarity (Zembylas, in
press). Therefore, critical pedagogies of emotion should be seen as practices that
envision the radicalization of solidarity and affective relationality with ‘others’.
In particular, critical pedagogies of emotion help to raise a number of important
questions for educators, such as the following:
• Do some forms of education for patriotism (e.g. extreme patriotism) cultivate particular emotions (e.g. resentment, hostility, hatred) towards ‘others’
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and eventually promote unhealthy emotional relations to other cultures and
polities?
• To which forms of visceral loyalties are students subjected at school in
relation to patriotism and which forms of patriotism formulate the most
dominant or singular of their loyalties? In which ways do these loyalties
prevent or encourage certain emotional commitments to human rights
values? How are these human rights values manifest in critical rather than
voyeuristic or sentimentalized ways?
• What are the emotional complexities of teaching for both unpatriotic
patriotism and human rights? How do discourses and pedagogical practices
of unpatriotic patriotism produce new affective possibilities that take into
consideration the emotional difficulties of committing to the ideals of
plurality and uncertainty?
These questions are reminders of the challenging yet important tasks that may be
accomplished by critical pedagogies of emotions, when patriotism is not ‘taught’ in its
‘loyal’ (singular) form, but rather is exposed as a ‘controversial issue’ (Hand &
Pearce, 2009) in schools, further complicated by human rights education.
In light of the long history of efforts to promote loyal patriotism in schools (Merry,
2009; Bekerman & Zembylas, 2012)——through history textbooks, school curricula,
school ceremonies and so on——the challenge for critical educators is to encourage a
form of patriotism and human rights that contributes to the development of criticality,
solidarity and affective relationality with others. It is worth noting here that such goals
are consistent with alternative ideas of how individuals may see themselves as related,
over and above those attached to nations, states and countries. Such alternatives,
however, do not automatically reject any form of patriotic education, especially in
political contexts such as those identified earlier, in which patriotic education and
moral education may be treated as interrelated. Opting for an approach to both
patriotism and human rights that is grounded in critical pedagogies of emotion has
two important advantages.
First, this approach takes as a point of departure the position that under some circumstances, patriotic education can be valuable, if it is critical and constructs a more
nuanced understanding of the consequences of the emotional attachments carried by
students’ affective investments to particular ideologies (e.g. extreme patriotism). One of
the goals of this approach, then, is to teach students to see their emotional commitments as not beyond question, but subjected to critical interrogation. This is clearly different from aiming to produce, in students, any particular emotions, which is a form of
indoctrination. On the contrary, the goal of the approach suggested here is to instil in
students a critical attitude of not taking emotional commitments for granted, but examining their links to certain ideologies——an attitude that does not preclude the development of a ‘healthy’, constructive and reasonable feeling of love for one’s country.
Furthermore, critical pedagogies of emotion recognize that the work of dominant pedagogies of emotion in society and in schools——such as those of blind patriotism——has a
powerful negative impact on the affective struggle for empowerment and resistance
(Worsham, 2001; Zembylas, 2012b). That is, critical pedagogies of emotion make
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The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights
13
teachers more critically aware of how students’ emotional attachments to some
ideologies are strongly entangled with historical and political circumstances and may
well undermine teachers’ pedagogical interventions. A critical pedagogy of emotion in
relation to patriotism and human rights issues, therefore, has a different point of departure and purpose from education that simply focuses on preparing students to ‘learn’
about others’ human rights violations, while ignoring those by their country because it
may be believed that their country is morally superior to others. A critical pedagogy of
emotion exposes the emotional dilemmas, tensions and divergent viewpoints that exist
between patriotism and human rights, and does not seek to impose homogenization and
standardization. It also examines how children and young people construct emotional
meanings of patriotism and human rights in different sites, and how they (and others,
who may belong to a different community) understand human rights in relation to
others. All of these understandings need to be constantly interrogated by explicitly
addressing the emotions arising in practice and by participating in action that engages
with new affective relationalities with others, such as compassion and solidarity.
Secondly, critical pedagogies of emotion encourage alternative entanglements
between human rights and patriotism that do not remain stuck in emotionalized
views of either patriotism or human rights. Such pedagogies, for example, open up
conceptual and action-oriented spaces so that human rights experiences (e.g. the
experience of all sides in a conflict) become human rights instruments in themselves (Keet, 2010). This idea does not imply the contextualization of human
rights universals and their nationalization to abide by the demands of patriotic
commitment. Rather, teachers need to create conditions where students can begin
to explore how human rights speak directly to human suffering, while encouraging
praxis that takes a critical stance against extreme forms of patriotism. Viewing both
human rights and patriotism as political projects rather than as moral ideologies
means acknowledging the complexities in their interpretations and exposing both
the transformative and conservative nature of human rights and patriotism. Critical
pedagogies of emotion engage students and teachers in a serious political analysis
that recognizes the emotional dilemmas and tensions involved in the interplay
between human rights and patriotism.
Conclusion
This article has explored the moral, political and pedagogical tensions that are created
from the entanglement of patriotism and human rights and has offered a possible
response to these tensions in the context of critical education. It has suggested that a
critical and non-universalist conception of human rights in conjunction with critical
patriotism formulates a strategy for rapprochement. Following this, a reasonable pedagogical approach to teach this conception is the notion of critical pedagogies of emotion, focusing on questioning the emotional commitments that are created in students
by patriotism and human rights; these emotional commitments operate both as a
provocation of critical pedagogies and as a way of structuring new affective
possibilities in schools. Without an interrogation of this emotional knowledge and its
consequences, the radical potential of critical pedagogies to reconstitute the emotional
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connections of students with ‘others’ may be compromised, in spite of teachers’ best
intentions (Worsham, 2001).
Simultaneously, one should be aware of the limitations when trying to explore a possible resolution to the relation between human rights and patriotism in the context of
education. There are important unanswered questions in the effort to make the emotional complexities of this resolution explicit and constructive: At which level of education (e.g. elementary, middle, high school, university) should this exploration of
patriotism and human rights be invoked? What are the dangers and the emotional
discomforts that students may experience when they are engaged in this exploration?
How far can critical pedagogues push their students to problematize their emotional
responses towards patriotism and human rights and to critique self and otherness, especially in light of (possible) open wounds in their communities, as is the case in many
conflict-troubled societies? These and other important questions offer the potential to
broaden the ways of considering the emotional implications of patriotism and human
rights in education. This is also more likely to inspire in students a renewed, more critical sense of emotional commitment to civil statehood, while taking into account the
complexities of human rights issues, particularly in conflict-troubled societies.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
As he writes: ‘Either one is a patriot or one believes in human rights. If one sees patriotism
as the prior virtue, this then rules out human rights, or indeed any cosmopolitan concerns,
except possibly as a default position which corresponds to, or echoes, the morally prior
virtue of patriotism’ (Vincent, 2009, p. 348, original emphasis).
Although the issue of ‘citizenship’ is somewhat relevant to our discussion here, the scope of
this article is limited to the relation between human rights and patriotism; for a detailed
analysis of the relation between human rights and citizenship, see Zembylas (2012a).
It is interesting to note that debates about patriotism in political and moral philosophy
often reflect larger debates about universalism and cosmopolitanism on the one hand, and
communitarianism on the other (Kodelja, 2011).
The idea that critical patriotism is concerned with the welfare of those outside one’s border
implies an understanding of one’s role as citizen in ways not confined by national borders
or geopolitics (Merry, 2009). I am thankful to one of the anonymous reviewers for
suggesting further clarifications of this issue.
Although I agree with Hand’s (2011) position about patriotism as a form of emotional education, I find several of his assumptions about educating for the emotions (pp. 330–337) to
be problematic; for example, the dichotomy he establishes between rational and
non-rational emotional education, his argument about partial emotional control, and the
therapeutic regime he subscribes to. It is beyond the scope of this article to critique Hand’s
position on educating the emotions, but an interesting set of counter-arguments for the
claims he makes can be found in Amsler (2011), Stenberg (2011), Worsham (2001) and
Zembylas (2008, 2012b).
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