A few years hence, the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War will provide an auspicious occasion during which we can reflect on what the historical event should mean to us. It comes into limelight in time of war because it is a notion that makes more sense when there is an identifiable enemy and one is expected to withhold love from enemies if not downright hate them. As George Orwell wrote in his 1945 book Notes on Nationalism, patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.

Furthermore, they continued, those ideas are deemed to have a universal and all-encompassing quality; therefore, the defense of the United States is not merely the protection of a particular society with a particular regime and a particular culture and history, inhabiting a particular piece of real estate, whose chief virtue is the fact that it is "ours." Indeed, the fluid, voluntaristic, present-minded, and contractarian nature of American culture makes it a society built, in Werner Sollors's formulation, upon the value not of descent but of consent, meaning that every individual is created equal and is equally provided with the opportunity to give his assent to the values for which the nation stands.

And penzu.com a country in which people applaud while politicians repeatedly try to restrict access to health insurance and thus health care in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic is not a country that values itself — let alone its veterans, when more and more service members and veterans are being diagnosed with COVID-19 When the politicians who should be offering guidance and help to the people are instead largely focused on helping the economy despite the increased risks to the people, telling us that it is for our own good, that is not a nation dedicated to serving the people that shall not perish from the earth," but one that is at risk of perishing.

Keller argues that whereas one's love of and loyalty to a family member or a friend may coexist with a low estimate of the person's qualities, patriotism involves endorsement of one's country. Similarly, if I'm amongst people who are not Americans, I probably know more about Americans, the American racial divide, I probably have more experience of the American adventure in Southeast Asia - I say "experience," not necessarily knowledge.

At the same time, it offers the director a chance for recognition in the race for distinction in an American democratic environment. There is thus no doubt that the ‘nation' in the sense of a social group can exist even when it is not explicitly tied to the nation as a cultural construct.