TO LOVE FRANCE
SOME NOTES ABOUT PATRIOTISM AND A BROADER LENT
TWO NOTIONS FROM SIMONE WEIL THAT WILL SERVE WHAT FOLLOWS:
"Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans...The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism."
“One can either love France for the glory which would seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and space; or else one can love her as something which, being earthly, can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.” (Weil, The Need for Roots)
Regarding the need for honor and patriotism, understood as an esteem for place and people:
Weil would say:
This is a valid need.
"This need is fully satisfied where each of the social organisms to which a human being belongs allows him to share in a noble tradition enshrined in its past history and given public acknowledgment."
This connection ties individuals to a perceived good rooted in their shared past.
ROOTEDNESS
Weil defines rootedness as "participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future."
Similar: Burke's famous reworking of social contractarianism:
Edmund Burke's contractarian theory views society as an "eternal contract" that binds past, present, and future generations, rather than merely a partnership among living individuals for short-term goals.
"Society is indeed a contract.... but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” (Burke)
While Weil would create a distinction between Burke’s frame of contractarianism and rootedness, the two harmonize here.
A Key Question: What, then, destroys rootedness?
Weil’s Answer: Economic Dislocation (Cash Contract as Sole Motive)
“Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.” (The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind, p.44, Routledge)
MATTHEW 16: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
It needs to be emphasized how the soul is always subterranean, always at the root level of life. Cash contracts are the easiest path to the erosion and destruction of rootedness, primarily because they demand so little. Cash contracts reduce everything down to profit and acquisition, not story, continuity, or meaning, which always transcend cash arrangements. Cash contracts are very simplistic and lack the nuances of real life (soul).
Dimitrios Halikias - "A rich, rooted social life is complicated, characterized by competing, overlapping sources and sorts of authority. It is much easier to wipe that all away and think only in terms of a cash contract. Adam Smith might think something similar—this is why he is so keen on the aesthetic appeal of an orderly, simple system.”
The Return to Rootedness Means an Exit
Halikias points out the current dichotomy, the insufficient binary within modern society:
“The political Right clings to nationalism, but has turned it into a kind of idolatry. Weil associates this idolatrous nationalism with the legacy of Rome: "Not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism."
“The political Left rejects nationalism and turns instead to cosmopolitan justice (indistinction). This, too, is a mistake. It entails an abandonment of the past, which is essential for rootedness.”
Halikias continues: Weil wants us to reinvent patriotism.
WEIL: “One can either love France for the glory which would seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and space; or else one can love her as something which, being earthly, can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.”
Weil’s offering is this: Christian patriotism (as opposed to Roman). To me, her idea is anchored to the reality of Lent: “Remember thou art dust.” She taps into the contemplative notion of impermanence.
This perspective is central to the larger discussion.
We must remember the impermanent nature of man-made things, or else we will fall prey to the same tired, cyclical deification of state-centered hubris/worship. This kind of pride is a temporal and transient mirage, a flash of glory quickly turned to vapor and dust.
Matt 24 “As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’”
Back to Weil, We can love France (the state) for “the glory which would seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and space…”
Such love is ultimately illusory, offering a temporary escape from the reality of impermanence inherent to all man-made entities.
This is the pipedream and seductive promise of totalist ideology; continuation through power, dominance, control. It is no cure, but a luring, euphoric, and transient escape from Reality (to dust you will return).
Temporal continuation within time and space is the delusional aspiration that humankind has grasped at (over and over again) throughout history.
It is an inversion of Lent, and an old lie: “the serpent said, Ye shall not surely die…”
This is our opportunity for an exit. We resist this myth.
The way towards Christian Patriotism
Weil continues that we can love France for illusional eternal glory, or, "Wean love France as something which, being earthly, can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.”
Therefore, Christian Patriotism does not violate Christian citizenship (which always transcends man-made lines carved into the dust) nor does it violate Christian Worship (which knows only one allegiance and refuses the temptations offered to Christ in the wilderness).
Rather, we love France because she is fragile, vulnerable, prone to error, destined for dust… We love her because she can be destroyed, and perhaps more easily than we can imagine.
We, with Christ, can see the fragility of every stone, every construct of power, of earthly authority and kingdoms… and yet we have compassion for the city-state.
“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”(Lk 19)
Christian Patriotism is an extension (continuation) of Christian love to earthly things that are bound to return to the earth. In other words, Weil is offering compassion as a form of Christian patriotism.
Compassion makes space for vulnerability and truth rather than triumph and myth. “One can either love France for the glory … or else one can love her as something which … can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.”
Compassion keeps both eyes open on both the good and the bad.
Compassion is vital for the existence of dissent and disobedience rather than blind allegiance.
Compassion is “the only love on this earth which is true and righteous.” Weil
Compassion recognizes that allegiance to the state has limits—conscience often calls for disobedience (faithfulness).
Weil writes, “Such a love can keep its eyes open on injustices, cruelties, mistakes, falsehoods, crimes and scandals contained in the country’s past, its present and in its ambitions in general, quite openly and fearlessly, and without being thereby diminished; the love being only rendered thereby more painful…Thus, compassion keeps both eyes open on both the good and the bad and finds in each sufficient reasons for loving. It is the only love on this earth which is true and righteous.”
Nathan Johnson comments on this, “The true Christian patriot loves his country because it is the community in which he forms a vital part, and from this love comes concern for the country’s soul and delight in the things of its past that nourish and sustain it.”
I would add that with this love (compassion) comes continual lament/protest:
Writers like Ellul and Stringfellow really emphasize this idea: The Christian insight and experience of reconciliation in Christ is such that “no estate in secular society can possibly correspond to, or much approximate, the true society of which they are citizens in Christ. They are - everywhere, in every society - aliens. They are always, in any society, in protest." (Stringfellow)
The well-known lament of Merton compliments this “When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my country may cease to want war, but above all that my own country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.” (New Seeds of Contemplation)
One can either love France (or Germany, Zimbabwe, Australia, etc.) for “the glory which would seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and space,” or “one can love her as something which, being earthly, can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.” Lenten reality reminds us that there will come a day when all of these (herself included) will return to dust. The state lies to us when she sings her siren song, filled with pomp and prestige, and most tragically, the language that only belongs to God. We make an idol of her when we sing along. The path of Christian Patriotism is that of compassion toward impermanent things. We love something that can and will be destroyed, and because of this reality, she is “all the more precious on that account.”
When I love the United States of America, it is for a reason similar to why I love my own body, for how fragile and utterly vulnerable it is.
So, with hand over heart, I utter the words, “My country tis of thee, remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shall return.” Then I’ll throw some ash out of the window of my rusty old Jeep while heading West on Route 66. Maybe later you can head south on Highway 35 and finish the imposition? Tell me when you’re there and I’ll make the sign of the cross with you.
Peace.