Customer Reviews

Patriotism and Other Mistakes

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This volume contains sixteen thoughtful, careful and highly nuanced exercises in political thought (to borrow a phrase from Hannah Arendt). Among the topics covered are: the relation of aesthetics to morality; the concept of judgment in Arendt; the connection between moral and intellectual integrity in Socrates; the "liberal" dimension of Hobbes' thought (as well as its more apparent illiberal dimension); Isaiah Berlin's notion of cultural and moral pluralism; and the implications of post-9/11 Bush adminstration policy for the American Constitution. Throughout, Kateb is learned and illuminating, and demonstrates why he is one of the most highly regarded political theorists writing in the liberal tradition today. The fact that the previous "reviewer" attempts to trash a work she has obviously not read (at least not beyond the title) tells us much about ideologically-inspired anti-intellectualism, and reveals the vagaries of Amazon's reviewing apparatus. Appalling.

This is probably Kateb's most challenging work. His teaching is subtle and hard. The volume includes some of his most sparkling essays: "Is Patriotism a Mistake?", "Aestheticism and Morality," "Socratic Integrity," and "The Adequacy of the Canon." First-time readers of Kateb may find the introduction tough-going at first, but its eloquence grows. The book's uniting theme (in my eyes) is the little noticed but highly significant role played by aestheticism in politics. This is the main focus of chapter 6, but the theme pervades the book. Serious students of politics would do well to study this last theme carefully, and to elaborate it beyond what Kateb so crucially has said.

We need police (or something very much like them) in order to have a prosperous community that can defend itself against bandits. Similarly, a nation has to defend its citizens from natural disasters as well as from threats to civilization from within and without. In addition, a nation ought to try to improve its society, and that includes building roads and other public works, building hospitals and tending to the public health, doing research in medicine and many other fields, educating people, supporting arts and sciences, and much more. That means that patriotism is not just a meaningless abstraction.

But this book does not say that. Maybe Kateb just forgot to do that. But maybe not.

In addition, this book mocks the fight against Middle Eastern terrorism. I think that shows a strong stand in favor of the patriotism that the author is supposed to be skeptical of, but that patriotism seems to be only to a bunch of thugs and tyrants.

I do not recommend this book.

One passage in this book describes patriotism as the willingness to die for ones country. Kateb then pontificates about how a person can never be in all parts of a country at any one time etc..., so they are effectively willing to die for an abstraction. Admittedly, this was the only chapter in the book I read because it was clear to me that the author was trying way too hard to sound intelligent. It was like listening to a drunk college student at the end of the night trying to talk world issues. Kateb is that college student; only he's written this foolishness, presumably sober.

What patriots are willing to die (I believe) is our way of life, their way of life as well as other peoples way of life. Had we no patriots, we would not have this country in the form that it is in, and Kateb would not have the right to author this swill. My thinking may be plain, but this chapter went off in so many directions; so many abrupt side notes and comparrisons, that it's nearly devoid of a clear thought. There is something to be said of an authors ability to drive home a point . While this professor may be very intelligent in other areas, as a writer Kateb's thoughts land on the page in a pile of philisophical puke.