The Pledge

[LightSpectra]

Was ehr sagt.
Sorry if the English idiom doesn't translate. I just think posting "This" is lame. Also sorry if my German spelling is bad.

I'm only a beginner at German as well but I think it would be "Was sagte er" [ist richtig].

 

[Dachs]

'Was sagte er' would be more of a question than a statement.

 

[LightSpectra]

Okay. Then my second guess is that there's no proper translation because the sentence in English is half implied subtext.

 

[Agent327]

Was ehr sagt.
Sorry if the English idiom doesn't translate. I just think posting "This" is lame. Also sorry if my German spelling is bad.

Nice one for the Deutsch 101 thread. Should read: Was er sagt. (What he says. I suppose what´s meant is ´What he said´, which translates to Was er sagte or, better, Was er gesagt hat. Unfortunately neither really gives the similar meaning as What he said. A simple Jawohl fits better with the usual What he said/This.)

 

[LightSpectra]

Dang. Well thanks for the correction.

 

[Plotinus]

Only if allegiance to your home nation is mutually exclusive with international cooperation and respect, which I don't think it is.

I don't think it's mutually exclusive with it. However, I do think it has an opposite tendency to it. I think that the more one has "allegiance" - whatever that may be - to one's home nation, the less likely one is to be interested in international cooperation and respect.

A promise not to commit treason against your nation. The most material example of this would be aiding enemy in wartime in such a way that results in your compatriots losing their lives;

I see. I would regard a pledge not to do this as morally reprehensible. It assumes that one's compatriots' lives are, necessarily, more important than the lives of the enemy, and that's immoral. To use a well-worn example, a German in WWII would surely be acting morally by aiding the enemy even at the cost of his compatriots' lives. One's actions in wartime should be determined by morality, not by nationality; to make nationality trump morality is surely, by definition, immoral.

a more abstract sense would be damaging your nation (that is, your neighbors) to your own profit, which is the result of all crimes and most immoralities.

I don't see this identification between "nation" and "neighbours". Crime and immorality are wrong because they harm people, not because they harm nations. Nations don't matter - people matter.

I don't really buy the "loyalty equals bigotry" argument. It's possible to have national pride without despising other nationalities.

Is it? What is "national pride", then? Isn't it believing that your nation is somehow better than others? If not, what is it? Is it just liking your nation? I don't see anything wrong with that, but I don't think that's strong enough to count as "loyalty" or "pride".

On the other hand, one doesn't "need" to have loyalty to moral abstractions. If they're clear, they justify themselves without drawing on emotional or identity attachments. Demographic groupings, on the other hand, be they political, cultural, or ideological, do depend on emotional ties.

Absolutely.

In fact, humans have a normal and natural tendency to form group loyalties and tend to establish rituals in order to firm up those loyalties. Asking why should nations do this is like asking Why do I have to chew my food? Can't I get the same results from chopping up my dinner into liquid form and pumping it straight into my stomach? Sure, but that's just not the way people have done things historically.

But nations don't have to do such things. I've never been asked to recite a pledge of loyalty to my country, either at school or anywhere else (and I would certainly have refused if I had been). And we seem to get on all right. Besides, of course, just because people have a tendency to do something doesn't make it justified, let alone right.

I think it's a mistake to look for a rational basis for the flag pledge. The practice is now tied into social norms for the cultural expression of national fidelity. You don't go into a Catholic church and ask the priest Why don't we cross ourselves over our elbows instead of our hearts? This is simply how it's done.

But the difference is that while the form of how one crosses oneself in Catholicism may be to some extent arbitrary, the devotion that that action expresses is essential to Catholicism. One could not be a Catholic without having the devotion, however it is expressed. But this is not the case with the "national fidelity" that the flag pledge or similar actions express. One could be American without feeling the slightest national fidelity, just as one could be British without feeling it, like me. So the issue isn't just how "national fidelity" is expressed. It's more about why there is a perceived need to encourage the feeling of "national fidelity" in the first place and what it amounts to.

 

[spryllino]

I see. I would regard a pledge not to do this as morally reprehensible. It assumes that one's compatriots' lives are, necessarily, more important than the lives of the enemy, and that's immoral. To use a well-worn example, a German in WWII would surely be acting morally by aiding the enemy even at the cost of his compatriots' lives. One's actions in wartime should be determined by morality, not by nationality; to make nationality trump morality is surely, by definition, immoral.

If the enemy is wronging your country it is justified to fight them. If you help the enemy your morality is short-sighted and you are not only prolonging the war and thereby causing increased casualties, but preventing your country from winning, which, provided your country is in the right, it ought to do.

I don't see this identification between "nation" and "neighbours". Crime and immorality are wrong because they harm people, not because they harm nations. Nations don't matter - people matter.

And nations help the people within them. To undermine a nation is potentially to the detriment of all the people in it. If Britain is at war with an enemy and there is a risk that that enemy will damage Britain's infrastructure, it is completely permissible for me to fight for the country even if there is little to choose between the relative moral positions of the two nations. In fact, it would be wrong not to because that same infrastructure is not only of use to me but to other British people too.

You could say that that should mean I should betray Britain if there is a more substantial chance of Britain winning than of the enemy winning. But to do that would simply cause a pendulum effect, if all British soldiers deserted every time Britain started winning. If someone's infrastructure has to be destroyed, I either have to prefer to let it be theirs in which case I am harming several million enemy citizens, or it be ours, in which case I am harming several million people and myself too. It is clearly morally permissible to choose the latter course and favour my nation over theirs, no?

 

[Plotinus]

If the enemy is wronging your country it is justified to fight them. If you help the enemy your morality is short-sighted and you are not only prolonging the war and thereby causing increased casualties, but preventing your country from winning, which, provided your country is in the right, it ought to do.

Right! But what if it's the other side that's in the right? What if your own country is wronging the enemy? Surely your decision which side to help should be based on who's in the right (if either), shouldn't it - not which side you personally happen to live in? In which case, pledging to support the country you live in, always, no matter whether it's in the right or not, is not merely wise but actively immoral, because you are opening yourself to the possibility of being forced (on pain of breaking your oath) to support the side that is in the wrong.

And nations help the people within them. To undermine a nation is potentially to the detriment of all the people in it. If Britain is at war with an enemy and there is a risk that that enemy will damage Britain's infrastructure, it is completely permissible for me to fight for the country even if there is little to choose between the relative moral positions of the two nations. In fact, it would be wrong not to because that same infrastructure is not only of use to me but to other British people too.

But by the same logic, to damage the enemy's infrastructure would also be wrong, because that infrastructure is of use to many people as well. Why does the nationality of the people being harmed make any difference?

Now certainly, if it's a matter of having to choose which infrastructure you're going to help damage, one might as well choose to damage the enemy's rather than your own country's - assuming that both sides are morally equal, of course. What I'm disputing is the notion that there is, or should be, some kind of obligation to choose to damage the enemy's infrastructure rather than your own country's. That's the point about this kind of "pledge" - it compels you to choose in favour of the country you live in, irrespective of whether that country is in the right.

You could say that that should mean I should betray Britain if there is a more substantial chance of Britain winning than of the enemy winning. But to do that would simply cause a pendulum effect, if all British soldiers deserted every time Britain started winning. If someone's infrastructure has to be destroyed, I either have to prefer to let it be theirs in which case I am harming several million enemy citizens, or it be ours, in which case I am harming several million people and myself too. It is clearly morally permissible to choose the latter course and favour my nation over theirs, no?

Yes, but as I say, it is surely equally morally permissible to choose the former course and favour the other nation over my own. Not only that, but there are cases where it is morally preferable - even morally obligatory - to do so. What I'm objecting to is not the notion that it's permissible to choose in favour of your own country; it's the notion that it's not permissible to choose in favour of another.

 

[BuckyRea]

Nice one for the Deutsch 101 thread. Should read: Was er sagt. (What he says. I suppose what´s meant is ´What he said´, which translates to Was er sagte or, better, Was er gesagt hat. Unfortunately neither really gives the similar meaning as What he said. A simple Jawohl fits better with the usual What he said/This.)

Only, a lot of people think that if you say Jawohl to someone, it's like calling them a nazi (or at least a goose stepping Prussian marionette.

 

[BuckyRea]

Is it? What is "national pride", then? Isn't it believing that your nation is somehow better than others? If not, what is it? Is it just liking your nation? I don't see anything wrong with [/i]that, but I don't think that's strong enough to count as "loyalty" or "pride".

Is the 4th of July about pretentions to superiority? My mileage differs. It's about identity, about tribal belonging. I don't see that it's necessarily jingoistic.

 

[LightSpectra]

I see. I would regard a pledge not to do this as morally reprehensible. It assumes that one's compatriots' lives are, necessarily, more important than the lives of the enemy, and that's immoral. To use a well-worn example, a German in WWII would surely be acting morally by aiding the enemy even at the cost of his compatriots' lives. One's actions in wartime should be determined by morality, not by nationality; to make nationality trump morality is surely, by definition, immoral.

One could consider Hitler to be a traitor to Germany for having launched her into aggressive wars and enacted egregiously immoral laws. I believe we discussed this a few weeks back, with the multiple contradictory definitions of "treason." I very much consider St. Clemens August Cardinal von Galen, Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, the White Rose activists, Joseph Ratzinger, Josef Cardinal Frings, Oskar Schindler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Joseph Kentenich to be more patriotic than any of the Nazis were, since by betraying the established regime they were helping their nation.

I don't see this identification between "nation" and "neighbours". Crime and immorality are wrong because they harm people, not because they harm nations. Nations don't matter - people matter.

Nations are composed of people. Harming a nation is harming people by proxy.

The rest of your post is misquoted as having me said the next three paragraphs, which I did not. (Presumably a copy/paste error?)

 

[Berzerker]

The Pledge is unconstitutional, and the fact the courts said they cant make it mandatory was a cop out - its coerced and thats the reality. An agent of the state - teacher, the person who grades the kids - tells them to stand and pledge their allegiance to an idol that represents the state's "God" thereby establishing religion, and whats a small child to do? Take the risk of angering the teacher and uber patriots? Maybe if all of us had to meet somewhere everyday to be led in our daily loyalty oath by a bureaucrat, maybe then people wouldn't be so fond of coercing loyalty oaths out of other people's children.

anyway, its to see conservatives extolling the virtues of reciting "patriotic" mantras from a national socialist.

 

[BuckyRea]

Thank you for this wonderful example of reductio ad absurdum.

I'm a teacher. I lead the Pledge every day. I must've missed the memo in which I told to refer to the flag as a god. The kids who don't stand up and pledge are free to do so in every class in the school.

We have a million little rituals in our public lives. They are not all about religion or indoctrination. They're about creating a common cultural experience. I don't know why you'd single this one out for an example of coercion. Am I coerced when I shake hands at a greeting or when I open a door for a lady or when I reply "fine" to a "How do you do?"

Silly twit.

 

[Plotinus]

I must admit it seems to me there's a pretty clear difference between greeting someone and reciting an oath, even considered purely as a social ritual. It's a public statement of belief and commitment, not merely a gesture that has no overt meaning.

But I must ask, purely for information: as a teacher leading this particular ritual, do you have a choice? Could you not participate if you didn't want to?

 

[BuckyRea]

I must admit it seems to me there's a pretty clear difference between greeting someone and reciting an oath, even considered purely as a social ritual. It's a public statement of belief and commitment, not merely a gesture that has no overt meaning.

I disagree; rituals matter and they never have "no overt meaning." Human communities are rife with little rituals that exist primarily for building connections between the people in a community as well as bonding people to the community at large. The relationship, the bonds, that I have with a friend in my social is different from the relationship that a child has with the government that protects her rights, sustains her security, and provides her education free of charge. So the cementing rituals will be, obviously, different rituals.

Our relationships are less formal than our social contracts with our various governments, and so they'll have less formality in them. The rituals you go through with your friends are personalized, customized to how yall get along. But that doesn't make them unimportant. Rituals build connections and connections sustain friendships past the natural frictions that occur whenever your interest or values might come into conflict.

Personal social rituals exist to help only my personal relationships. The relationship of the citizen with the state is the very foundation of sustaining liveable communities. Both rituals have overt meanings, even if the Pledge is more important. Less is riding on one interpersonal relationship, but that's not to say that it doesn't matter. Having a resilient circle of friends can make a huge difference in someone's life--although it would be on a different scale than one's relationship with a government.

Now, a lot of people complain that the Pledge to the American flag is silly, or is indoctrination, or forces a state ideology on the child. Some say it's hypocritical to have a country based on personal liberty then go ahead and mandate that its kids all recite a statement of beliefs in unison. But my larger point was that we have a myriad of rituals in our lives and every one of them is about establishing a place and an identity within the context of a larger social unit, be it a church, a country, or a circle of friends.

It strikes me as reasonable and just that the government ask that a child pledge allegiance to our form of government, of which the flag is only a token. This makes sense because this child will be expected as an adult in the future to sustain that form of government so that future generations of Americans can also enjoy the rights and benefits that she as a child is now enjoying. We all have a covenant with future generations to pass along to them a workable, liveable world. Establishing among today's children a sense of being part of that covenant is necessary for sustaining that covenant with the future by sustaining the government that exists to carry out that covenant. This is at the heart of how societies maintain their values over time.

Is this particular flag pledge ritual indispensable? No, it's just a ritual. Maybe someone could come up with a better one. But the very existence and unchanging nature of rituals is part of their strength. If you monkey around with them, they become less important. Rituals have a concrete value: they reinforce social bonds; they communicate social norms; they remind us that there's a larger purpose going on with each day's smaller actions. The absence of ritual exposes those important social bonds to neglect, if they're taken for granted. So ritual is needed; ritual matters.

But I must ask, purely for information: as a teacher leading this particular ritual, do you have a choice? Could you not participate if you didn't want to?

As a purely philosophical statement, the Pledge to the American flag is pretty bland. You salute the flag and commit to a republican form of government. That's all there is to it. But even at that, it's still permissible to opt out. Lots of kids do. It doesn't bother me, because they've at least thought about what they're doing--and a questioning public serves the purposes of a republic anyway.

As a functionary of a social organ, it's not really my business to choose, for myself whether I order kids to stand for the pledge. Most of them don't say it anyway. The repetition, the standing, the respect for the icon of the government--that's important too. It's 30 seconds of deference in an 8 hour school day; not a big price. But repeated day after day, it is a useful reminder of what it all comes down to.

I reckon if it really bothered me to salute the flag, I could opt out. No one's around to enforce it. But as a social studies teacher, I have a special obligation not to infuse my political biases into the teaching of history. I surrender that to the process because I want to live in a country where kids get educated by the facts first and form their own opinions later. By the same token I don't choose to question how much I buy into the need for this particular ritual. My employer asks me to do it and the request makes sense. I'm a public servant; so seeing no injustice done, I comply.

 

[Berzerker]

Thank you for this wonderful example of reductio ad absurdum.

I'm a teacher. I lead the Pledge every day. I must've missed the memo in which I told to refer to the flag as a god. The kids who don't stand up and pledge are free to do so in every class in the school.

We have a million little rituals in our public lives. They are not all about religion or indoctrination. They're about creating a common cultural experience. I don't know why you'd single this one out for an example of coercion. Am I coerced when I shake hands at a greeting or when I open a door for a lady or when I reply "fine" to a "How do you do?"

Silly twit.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The flag is an idol (it was to the Christians who challenged the pledge back in the 40s), not God. You recite that everyday and dont know the flag represents the republic and its god? You're telling other peoples children to pledge their allegiance to the state's god and dont even know it? And you can say the kids are "free" (and thats BS) but freedom means the absence of coercion as well as force, and its inherently coercive for the teacher to instruct the class to stand and recite the Pledge - your students have reason to believe upsetting you could cause them trouble (duh). As for why I'm "singling" out this "ritual", look at the title of the thread.

 

[LightSpectra]

The flag is an idol (it was to the Christians who challenged the pledge back in the 40s), not God.

Of course the flag isn't God. Even the pledge says that the flag is under God.

You recite that everyday and dont know the flag represents the republic and its god?

"Its" God is manifestly the Christian God if we're going by how Washington, Lincoln and other fathers of the republic have spoken of Him.

And you can say the kids are "free" (and thats BS) but freedom means the absence of coercion as well as force, and its inherently coercive for the teacher to instruct the class to stand and recite the Pledge - your students have reason to believe upsetting you could cause them trouble (duh). As for why I'm "singling" out this "ritual", look at the title of the thread.

Are you American? Just wondering, because it seems being rebellious to teachers is not only tolerated but expected in our culture nowadays.

 

[Karalysia]

Seig heil comrade!

That's not disturbing AT ALL. Which one is American and which one is Nazi Germany? Can you tell?

 

[Traitorfish]

The great irony being that Bellamy was a socialist.

 

[Karalysia]

The great irony being that Bellamy was a socialist.

It's all the same to LightSpeter so equally valid.