Flags and posters

I am struck by the number of odd comments about flying the flag. Perhaps this is strictly an American thing… The US flag probably has more significance to their countryman than other countries. Here are just a few examples:

• Susan B
• National Anthem is all about the flag
• Salutes and pledges
• Ability to purchase a flag that has been flown over the Capitol
• Rules and regulations over how to handle the flag
• National Flag Day in June 14th
• Making flag desecration a crime in some states
• Dozens of poems, essays,  and songs about the flag.

My point is two-fold: 1) it should suprise no one that Americans revere the flag and 2) in my mind no one has qualified or articulated why it is wrong to do so. Since when did “flying a flag” become a symbol of facism?

I am struck by the number of odd comments about flying the flag. Perhaps this is strictly an American thing.

It isn’t.

Scandewegians are mad crazy for a bit of the old flagpole action, although there is a protocol for when. There are several (double figures) days when the national flag _must_ be flown, by law, from every Latvian building, and there are special flag police who check and fine offenders. (Source for the latter: Deutsche Welle TV over Christmas.)

It’s the UK that’s anomalous, and the rehabilitation of the St George flag (of England) a couple of years ago for the world cup (in Proper Football) and the Queen’s golden jubilee made me wonder if there’d been a fasciste coup here for a while.

In my head I am currently proudly flying the flag of the late, lamented Free Territory of Trieste, but so far I don’t have a real one.

I went to Newark a week earlier than you Chris and I was amused to see cameras to take certain visitors pictures, but otherwise I was amazed by how fast we got through customs. This was helped I suspect by a) arriving at 10pm and b) they put everyone, American and non-American in the same queue. Other times I’ve been in a non-American queue with about two immigration officials and 200 passengers.

I suspect the ‘all Americans’ is partly because the ratio of domestic to international passengers at US airports is that much higher.

I also from the BA inflight magazine managed to work out the passport/visa situation for Britons visiting America in the future, which some readers may find useful. From October 26th if you have either a very old passport (without a bar-code) or a very new one (issued from October 26th) you will need to get a visa until (from mid-2005 the goverment say) we can get biometric passports. Otherwise one can travel visa-free to the US for the life of your existing passport but you will be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival.

You think that American security sign is exclusionary… try spending some time in Texas. I really wouldn’t be very surprised at all to see a sign at an airport committing the personnell to the security of all Texans.

My brother used to fly a black flag fom our house in Cleveland in the late 60s on the 4th of July, and my mom had to field visits from the neighbors.
The fact that teenagers overseas wear the Union Jack on clothing seems to have little bearing on its significance in the UK. In fact, none whatever.

On the language point, isn’t there just some basic fuzziness between the word “American” and words connoting “person” in American English? (Roughly like English English is often very fuzzy between “Britain/ish” and “England/ish”). For the converse of saying “American” and meaning “people”, see Howard Dean’s remark last November that “there are now almost 400 people dead who wouldn’t be dead if that resolution hadn’t been passed and we hadn’t gone to war”.

Dunno. I always associate the Union Jack with the vest Tim Brooke-Taylor wore in the Goodies, and the St George flag with the Barmy Army at the Cricket.

And a few years back I was watching the NSL grand final on TV and noticed there was a Union Jack behind the sidelines with “SOUTH MELBOURNE HELLAS” daubed along the crosspiece. I was quite amused by that.

I have to say that anyone who had a flagpole in their garden would in general be regarded in the UK as a bit weird whatever they flew from it.

And by the way the stuff about revering the flag is not absolutely universal here. I’m a Murkan, but I’ve always found flag worship deeply weird. I did not rush out to buy one on the afternoon of September 11, I’ve never in my life pledged allegiance to it, I cringe when I see immense ones outside hamburger joints. I’m not keen on sub-rational symbol-mongering.

Same with the protecting all Murkans bit. I cringe at our parochialism just as much as I cringe at our cloth-fetishism. Not to mention our chronic god-bothering.

Sorry. I know that will infuriate a few or a lot of people. But there it is.

Two things have always intrigued me about the US – the first is the reverence paid to the physical flag itself – all that ritualistic folding and things (although I remember having to go through rather similar actions in my boy sprout days).

The second is the equally strong reverence paid to the physical body of the President which sometimes comes over as almost mystical. Just compare what happens at a press conference by the US President and one by the British PM. You don’t see many British journos leaping to their feet for Tony do you?

I often feel – especially given the real power vested in his hands – that the President is really an elected King, and what’s more a King with powers much more akin to those of the King in Britain c1800 than those exercised by our own dear Queen.

I’ve asked this question of US citizens before but never been able to get an answer.

In passing, one of the less endearing characteristics of Americans on Usenet and the like used to be the assumption that everyone was of course American like them. I remember being rather bemused the first time I was accused of being un-American for asking a question like this!

Well, Ian, we don’t have a King, but I’ve begun to suspect that people feel some sort of deep need for one.

For instance, witness the reverence in the US for the Constitution (that’s with a capital “C,” pal!). Every public official from the dogcatcher to the President (capital “P”!) swears alliegance to it, in the manner that the public servants of an earlier day swore fealty to a lord or king.

We tend to think that our Constitution embodies everything right and good and forbids all that is bad; we have a nasty habit of taking patently political debates and claiming that our desired result is compelled by our nation’s charter. I think that is a sort of king-worship-displacement: we think a wise constitution must agree with us, our Constitution is by definition wise, so it must agree with us, regardless of what it actually says. That strikes me as a modern republican version of royal infallability.

Also, it seems to me that people want a symbolic head of state. Many other countries have an unelected monarch filling the “personification of the Nation” role, but we have to make do with only old parchment, striped cloth, and a politician.

As someone with a completely American context, I can say that I’ve long found flag displays a bit creepy (or at least gauche). For me, they’re evocative of groupthink/nationalist/parochialist thinking. But, really, is that exceptional of Americans? Don’t many cultures express these sentiments in one form or another?

On the other hand, my ex-wife, a Canadian, was weirded out by her first few Independence Day celebrations here in the states. But I defended American patriotism in that context—where I share it. More often than not, I’m embarassed by what America and Americans actually are, but I’m rather proud of and revere the ideals that form the core of what it ought to be.

I hate to start a flame war, but Keith and Ophelia have just annoyed me too much with their superior attitude.

Is is somehow impossible to imagine that some people fly the flag not because they are drooling morons who can’t think for themselves, but rather simply because they love their country and its ideals? Is it not possible that for some, the flag symbolizes for them precisely what the US ought to be?

Can you imagine that for some, the American flag represents not parochialism and narrow-mindedness, but tolerance, equality, justice, and openness to new people and ideas?

Any chance that people who don’t share your left-wing, athiest, “citizen of the world” political views might be a person worthy of your respect and, dare I say it, tolerance?

Sheesh.

“…but tolerance, equality, justice, and openness to new people and ideas?

I don’t doubt that there are a minority of people for whom this is true, you among them. And good on ‘ya for it. But I don’t think this is true for the majority; I do think that for a large portion of America the flag is an emblem of bigotry, and thus I consequently am offended by it. You realize that this discussion applies perfectly well to the Confederate Flag, too? So, do you think the proud displays of the Confederate Flag most often represent benign southern pride, or is it something more sinister? For some, I think the former. For a much-too-large portion, the latter. Public symbols come to mean what they come to mean, contrary individual or minority efforts notwithstanding.

BTW, Robert: I’d never seen your blog, so I just clicked on your URL, and now I find you’ve hung up your boots. Oh well. But best of luck in law school.

It really is unimaginable that a similar poster at a British or European airport would speak of “all Britons” or “all Europeans” — it would seem weird and exclusionary.

Yes, but as others have mentioned, the proportion of domestic air travellers compared to international ones in the US is very different to that in major British or European airports.

(I’m more annoyed by the post hoc naturalisation of everyone who died on Sept. 11th 2001: you hear about the ‘3,000 dead Americans’ all the time here, which must be news to the next of kin who then faced deportation.)

As for the flag, it’s a sad truth that were a Martian to land in the US, it would assume that the flag were a symbol of the relative power of car dealerships. Perhaps that is the ideal to which Robert Lyman aspires.

“Any chance that people who don’t share your left-wing, athiest, “citizen of the world” political views might be a person worthy of your respect and, dare I say it, tolerance?”
Tolerance, absolutely. I wouldn’t want them shaping national policy, mind you. I prefer my leaders to know there’s a planet out there.
IMO US attitudes to the flag are fetishistic. It’s that simple. I can handle a little fetishism, but sometimes it has drawbacks.

So surely it’s not just effete nihilism to think patriotism should be used with caution.

Of course Ophelia is right about that. But it isn’t clear to me that American patriotism–which is really quite explicitly political, “liberty and justice for all” and all that–is comparable to the fascistic blood-and-soil, lebensraum sort of patriotism.

Nick complains about it, but sure the willingness of Americans to count the foreigners who died on Sept. 11 as “Americans” is better than carefully parsing them out: “2,500 Americans, and 500 non-human furriners who don’t count for anything.”

Congrats to Robert, Keith, and Ophelia for having this argument civilly. Not surprised that you three can do it, but even that’s a testament to your skills.

Isn’t there this issue about the meaning of symbols: when I display the symbol I cannot simply invest it with my preferred meaning if I know that it means something quite different to some of the audience, and to some of the other displayers of the symbol. Not playing a number game here – some flag wavers do so as a kind of in-your-face display of self-satisfied superiority, other do it in the spirit Robert describes, and still others without a thought in the world and I don’t know the proportions. But those who do it benignly are, or should be, aware that others do it differently, and that affects the meaning of their own actions. So context matters quite a bit — hence the difference between diplaying a ST George’s flag at a test match in 2000 from displaying it just about anywhere in England in 1985. I’m not quite siding with Ophelia and Keith here, though I’m inclined to, but saying to Robert that the benign flag-displayer (and like him I know, and am related to, many of them) has a to tell a slightly more complicated story about why it is ok (similarly with confederate flag displayers who cannot avoid knowing how what they do will be taken by others).

“But it isn’t clear to me that American patriotism—which is really quite explicitly political, “liberty and justice for all” and all that—is comparable to the fascistic blood-and-soil, lebensraum sort of patriotism.“—Robert

This is the root of our disagreement. You think the best about ostentatious American patriotism, I do not. I think we both hold these positions in good faith.

Believe me, I wish I could believe otherwise. I am critical of the US and my fellow Americans, but I’m not the least antiamerican in the perverse, self-hating sense. In general, I think the best of people, not the worst; and I certainly don’t style myself a cynic.

But I have a big, big problem with tribalism and I believe that those instincts are the cause of the majority of evil in the world.

It’s no coincidence that 9/11 inspired a bunch of ostentatious patriotism. People were not waving the flags out of a desire to assert democracy and civil liberties; they were waving the flags as a show of tribal solidarity in the face of an enemy, alien threat. This was accompanied by a great deal of xenophobia and demonization. People who appeared middle-eastern were assaulted in the streets. A middle-aged woman I know was spit upon. I think this is all part-and-parcel. Is this what the flag-waving means to everyone? Of course not. But it means this to too many people for me to feel comfortable associating myself with it in any sense.

when I display the symbol I cannot simply invest it with my preferred meaning

So context matters quite a bit

Didn’t we have this argument over the “meaning” of the Spanish election? And aren’t the positions and their supporters now reversed?

For the record, I agree entirely with Harry’s quotes above. In both situations.

Nick complains about it, but sure the willingness of Americans to count the foreigners who died on Sept. 11 as “Americans” is better than carefully parsing them out.

I’d prefer a parsing that replaced ‘Americans’ with ‘people’, Robert.

And I’m actually glad that the flag is used as synecdoche for the nation, compared to the alternatives. But when you have a symbol as amorphous in its connotations, it’s important, in a way, to defend that multiplicity of meanings, whether it’s to sell cars or stand as an implicit endorsement of constitutional liberty.

Kim—you may not recall that my positions are consistent between this and the Spanish election. I asserted, for example, that terrorism and the response to it are communication and even that, to some degree, the Spanish election was felicitous to Al Qaeda and the terrorists. But I also asserted that the overwhelmingly primary context for the Spanish election was as a referendum on the former government. I am arguing in this case that the primary context (though not as overwhelmingly) for American flag-waving is chauvinism.

And, not incidentally, I wrote something similarly consistent with regard to the swastika thread, as well.

Harry’s point above is the salient one. Context matters a great deal and context is not a matter of (individual) personal choice. If one wishes to assert a meaning of a symbol that differs from convention, then one must do so very loudly and actively…not silently, lest one be misunderstood.

I don’t, for example, see many attempts to clearly and loudly distinguish the display of the Confederate Flag from its conventional, bigoted context. This is revealing, I think. I’d be more impressed if the argument that it’s benign was pro-active and otherwise substantiated. Not merely as an aggrieved defense.

Loosely related :

I noticed these last summers that a huge majority of english speaking backpackers had somewhere a little red-and-white maple leaf. Sewed, printed, stamped, drawn, whatever. So i go “wow, somehow i’d have thought canadians were not so gung-ho for the flag thing”. Then go “mmmmmmhmmmmm maple syrup”, homer style. Then move on to the next thing.

Later i discovered on the net (we all know how reliable this thing is, right?) the u.s. myth of the rude-to-americans parisian, and the ensuing countermeasures : “just put on a canadian flag, they’re popular there”.

It’s not a proof, mind you. But more than enough anyways for me to spread here in paris the urban legend that under every canadian flag decorated backpack, there’s a freaked out mirkin.

So it seems we have the traditionnally flag waving americans, waving the flag of the traditionnaly not flag waving canadians. Among the subtles pleasures of living in france maybe :-)

While the primary units in which we live in are defined as nations we will need to have some kind of pride and self-respect relating to them – i.e. “patriotism”.

On the other hand, there is a very long history throughout the world of nationalism functioning to dull the critical faculties of the masses. Europeans, for obvious historical reasons are probably more acutely aware, and wary, of this – national flag fervour, we’ve seen this tape before, and it didn’t end up too happily.

Europe is no more about to go fascist again than is the US, but Europeans are still that bit wary of flag-flaunting. Too often, IMO, what is on display in America would be better named as nationalism than patriotism.

the overwhelmingly primary context for the Spanish election was as a referendum on the former government.

And the context for that referendum was the bombings of March 11. As I recall, many of the arguments here either denied that the events of March 11 were crucial to the result of March 14 (i.e. that the trend would have brought a Socialist victory anyway) or insisted that if they were influential, it was only because they showed the PP government to be liars. Having one’s “queque”…?

the primary context (though not as overwhelmingly) for American flag-waving is chauvinism.

Agreed.

But (our) Canadian flag-waving has no such connotation. None, none, none.

Ian—understanding these nuances is all about understanding the distinctions between cultural and political identity and the fact that the US, relative to most other nations, does not have both those identities rooted in ethnicity. But since I believe that most people are tribal, I think that American tribalism manifests as a pseudo-ethnicity— a fable about American history that conflates apple-pie, baseball, independent white men, John Wayne, protestantism, and the 50s nuclear family. That is, however, very much not the America of today (if it ever was). Those folks’ allegiance is to a fabled, white, Christian America; they are, they believe, the proper inheritors of the legacy of the founding fathers and that the Leviathan, taxing federal government—even when nominally controlled by Republicans (conservatives, even now, even at the helm, are convinced of their outsider, aggrieved status)—is the “enemy”.

This isn’t much different than any other nationalism; it’s not about political ideals, it’s about volk. The only difference here is that volk has to necessarily be defined in a non-standard way (that is, not by traditional ethnicity). The impulse to nationalism is essentially the same in America as it is elsewhere, but its expression can be very idiosyncratic.

they?ve had maple leafs on their backpacks in Europe for decades.

Izzatafact?

Well all the worse. Don’t need no stinkin’ fact spoiling my funny story. Se non e vero, e ben trovato. So there.

Ah. Note to self: Google first, then post. The maple leaf flag was adopted in 1965.

Ian,

I am one of those flag waving anti-government types. There is a bumper sticker which represents this phenomenon: “I love my country but I fear my government.” I don’t actually have that on my car, but that’s because of my wife.

Now, I think Keith is, once again, being far less generous than he ought to be to his political opposites. I’ll agree with his idea that most people are tribal, but other than that I think his explanation is nonsense.

Simply put, my “love but fear” ideology can be summed up in two bullet points:

–“My country” means freedom, Bill of Rights, equality under the law, etc. I associate the flag with those ideals. And while this does make me the intellectual heir of the Founders, I wouldn’t limit my “tribe” to white Christians; it’s a big tent, with plenty of room for pretty much anyone who believes in the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independance. My wife, for instance, is the daughter of Korean immigrants; she certainly is welcome.

–“my government” is the messy and necessarily crude attempt at implementing the ideals of “my country.” Simply put, I mistrust all concentrations of power, whether they be government, labor unions, corporations, whatever. The federal government is the granddaddy of all power concentrations; I trust it less than any of the others. And since so many of the people who run the government seem to hold me in open contempt for my beliefs and my lifestyle, I naturally trust it even less. Fundamentally, I want to be left alone to run my own affairs to the extent possible; I mistrust and dislike those who think I need Big Brother to guide my every move.

The key distinction: the United States is not the United States Government.

Robert—I believe you, but I think you’re in the minority.

Years ago I worked in a retail store that was situated in the Korean area of town (this was in Amarillo). One day I helped a middle-aged Korean couple who was being kind of picky about their selection. A coworker later privately made a disparaging comment about Koreans and that they should “go back where they came from”. I responded that immigrants built this country and immigrants are still building this country; and, to me, those folks are more “American” than many white people I know.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in Texas; but when I’ve traveled elsewhere I’ve heard the same crap (though not as egregious). The America I grew up in and live in today is far from the idealistic America that you and I want it to be. It’s bigoted, racist, ignorant, and hateful. Is it worse than average in these respects? I doubt it. (For example, I discovered Canada’s seedy underbelly for myself.) And there are a good number of people in the US—people like you and me and the others represented in this thread—who do their best to try in their own behavior and in their influence to help this country live up to its ideals.

But I’ve seen a lot of hate and ugliness in my life that has taken sanctuary under the flag.

I’d prefer to live in the America you believe exists. I’d never be able to live in the America that leftist, American, antiamericans believe exists. Instead, I’m stuck with what I think is its flawed-but-not-evil reality and I’ll take the good and fight the bad.

I’ll take you at your word and I regret tarring you with such a broad brush. But I honestly think that flag-waving in the US is more bad than good.

As an aside, there was in the late 90s in Australia, a period in which the national anthem was commonly sung (by an invited individual) prior to many sporting events.

This fashion appears to have passed, and while I never saw explicit debate about it, I imagine many others shared my view that this was an objectionably unAustralian practice.

As an even further aside, the Marseillaise is regularly played at the sporting events I attend, since my local Australian football team has adopted it as the tune for its club song. I don’t know quite what to think about this, but it’s a great tune.

(Apologies if two very similar comments appear; I think the version I tried to send last night was eaten by the internet but I can’t be sure.)

I would like to take issue with Chris’s initial assertion that any British person who flies a union flag or cross of St George would be regarded as some kind of nut (or a racist). Round where I live that is not true. For instance there is a particularly enormous cross of St George flying from a pole in front of the Queen Victoria pub in Great Dunmow. That pub is also the Jalsa Ghar Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant.

Point taken about the house/pub distinction, but even so I see quite a few in front of houses (they went up at the time of the World Cup/ Golden Jubilee and some never came down) and they can’t all be fascists. I hope. Headingham in particular seems to be a hotbed of flaggery. Perhaps the influence of Headingham Castle gives them delusions of royal birth.

Changing the subject a bit, a Scottish friend observes that the Cross of St Andrew is a very common sight up there (People flying union flags are the rebels) and no one thinks it weird at all. It’s not fair!

In an excellent essay, Geoff Rector writes,
“there is nothing so foreign to Canadians as the American flag. This is because, unlike the Canadian flag, which in 1965, after years of negotiation and compromise, we agreed would designate the nation–what the linguists would call a sign of convention–the American flag is a sacralized symbol. It is an object of public veneration that focuses the belief systems of a quasi-religious cult of the nation.”
For the whole essay, check out http://www.thestranger.com/2003-07-03/ex3.html