I want to use this post to bookmark a thought, a comment I made over at Wonkette, in the discussion about Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. It started with Dok Zoom’s quote from the book:

“Le Guin also has her characters wrestle with patriotism, a very contemporary issue for a novel written mostly in 1968, that year of American insanity — just as our nation is going insane today, albeit in different ways. Before he’s sent into exile, Estraven asks Genly if he knows what patriotism is:

“No,” I said, shaken by the force of that intense personality suddenly turning itself wholly upon me. “I don’t think I do. If by patriotism you don’t mean the love of one’s homeland, for that I do know.”

“No, I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression. It grows in us, that fear. It grows in us year by year. We’ve followed our road too far. And you, who come from a world that outgrew nations centuries ago, who hardly know what I’m talking about, who show us the new road—” He broke off. After a while he went on, in control again, cool and polite: “It’s because of fear that I refuse to urge your cause with the king, now. But not fear for myself, Mr. Ai. I’m not acting patriotically. There are, after all, other nations on Gethen.”

(Wonkette: Ice, Ice, Baby: Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Left Hand Of Darkness’ )

So, that theme did not really get much response in the comments (as if they’d actually let us comment over there /s). But left me pondering, in that way we have when our thoughts are still a bit muddled. In fact, that’s why I was hoping it would come up in the discussion among us readers, I wanted to unmuddle my thoughts.

So I spat this out about three hours after the previous comment, and want to keep thinking about it. In my many readings of the book, I have thought about Estraven and his loyalty to his fellow Gethenians, and their place in the greater universe, a broader loyalty than to either Karhide or its Kings, or to Orgoreyn. I had just never really taken in the paragraph that Dok quoted.

Not sure how many of us are coming back here to read and perhaps post, but I did kind of want to talk about the patriotism thing. I’m not sure where to start, but Estraven’s thought on patriotism of course crossed over into my own reactions. Sometimes I feel very patriotic, in the sense of loving my place, my people, and I can get very damn teary about the preamble of the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence. It’s quite specific to the history of the American revolution, to the Enlightenment, and a particular interpretation of that history. I sucked it up when I was young, and it’s still at work within me. My early, and current fascination isn’t with the Revolutionary War history; it’s the development of the idea, the American Experiment, with which we are still experimenting.

And it doesn’t feel like the “blood and soil” type of patriotism that the right wing promotes, in name or or by implication. It’s not a “my land, my people above everything else.” My patriotism is tied to ideas, and maybe groups of people, and the history of This Place (or rather, That Place, on the other side of the nation) but not so much to national boundaries. It reaches out to touch the French revolution, the revolutionary movements in Central America, to all movements where people are, as they say, yearning to be free. I know more of my own country’s history; I think that’s why our founding documents stir me, because it has more context for me. Maybe if I knew as much about the French revolution, that one would stir me more too. And then again, maybe what I’m feeling is not patriotism at all.

The patriotism Estraven speaks of is frightening, based on hate as much as loyalty. His words made me think of blind allegiance, the loyalty of the Trumpers. What I see there seems completely alien, a loyalty that I can not relate to, do not want to relate to. It’s a type of loyalty which cuts out whole swaths of humanity, designating them as Other, as unworthy of rights and respect. And they consider themselves quite patriotic, and me a traitor.

Yes, maybe what I’m feeling isn’t patriotism after all.

I got a couple of responses, again hours later, so not the conversation I was hoping, but it will surely happen in other venues.