Dr. Johnson's much misunderstood saying about patriotism's being the last refuge of a scoundrel came to my mind as I read a letter to the Times of London from a Mr. G.V. Harries of Cheltenham. Mr. Harries had by his own account been one of the 275 now-notorious members of the Oxford Union who voted in February of 1933, only days after Hitler had come to power in Germany, for the proposition "That this House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country." No more than 153 votes were recorded against the motion....
But Mr. Harries thinks they've got it all wrong. "My friends and I who voted for the motion not to fight for King and country have been misunderstood ever since," he writes. "Jo Grimond" -- the former Member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Party -- "in his Memoirs had it right: that it was not a pacifist vote but a vote for a wider loyalty to collective security and the League of Nations. The catastrophe of 1914- 18 was much in our minds."
...
But what made me think of Dr. Johnson were those fateful words: "a wider loyalty." It was something very much along the same lines that Johnson was thinking of when he took on John Wilkes's notion of just such "a wider loyalty" to the nation -- that is "patriotism," on his own account of it -- as an excuse for what Johnson regarded as disloyalty to the King.
The point that someone who feels allegiance to the United Nations is thereby less loyal to the United States is quite true. We all have to make choices. Loyalty to state and to country are both good things. In 1861, George Thomas chose the United States over Virginia, while Robert Lee made the opposite choice. As a matter of patriotism, it is hard to say who was right -- which perhaps is why it is a good example of how other things besides patriotism matter too, things such as due process, the limitation of war, and the ethics of slavery.
I can't see why anybody would be loyal to the United Nations, though. The organization does seem to arouse warm feelings in some people, but it is so clearly artificial, corrupt, and rootless that I have a hard time seeing why. Indeed, I wonder whether the warm feelings aren't just a cover-- perhaps even against admission to oneself-- for hatred of one's own country.
The other point though is what Samuel Johnson's aphorism means. I've always wondered. And now I'm more confused than ever. He did write an essay in 1774 called "The Patriot". The scoundrel aphorism seems to come from Boswell's Life of Johnson:
Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.
But there is no context there-- the preceding paragraph is *not* about patriotism or John Wilkes. So Bowman's claim must be based on more general information about Johnson and Wilkes. Bowman's claim is certainly plausible, but I wish I had it pinned down more. May 18 updates: Two readers comment:
It's always attributed to Dr Johnson--not Boswell, I believe, but one of his Tory tracts in the 1770s.andTo understand Johnson's comments you need to understand the meaning of the word "patriot" at the time. The word, which was just entering into common usage, was primarily being used by the Whigs, as well by the American and French revolutionaries (the latter just after Johnson's death). Patriotism, from Latin patria, had connotations of the Roman Republic, classical revival, and austere virtue. Its users generally contrasted it to the supposedly corrupt, luxurious, and decadent life associated with the monarchy in England, claiming that they really thought about the public good, while stupid loyalists and Tories like Johnson allowed the king to get away with corrupting the commonwealth. It was definitely a partisan word. In short, "patriotism" carried in the eighteenth century the same connotation that "social justice" carries now.[in full at 04.05.17a.htm]
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