American Patriotism in a Global Society

by Betty Jean Craige

Book Overview

Betty Jean Craige is University Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia and is Director of the University of Georgia Humanities Center. She is the author of several books, including Reconnection: Dualism to Holism in Literary Study (for which she won the Frederic W. Ness Book Award) and Laying the Ladder Down: The Emergence of Cultural Holism (for which she was co-winner of the "Georgia Author of the Year"...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791429601
• ISBN13: 9780791429600
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 197 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Required reading for "Planetary Citizenship 101."

Betty Jean Craige explicates here the principles and conflicting dynamics of "political dualism" and "political holism." In seeking to redefine an understanding of patriotism (American or other) more in alignment with the accelerating globalization of societies, Craige offers multiple descriptions and meticulously researched--and very current--concrete examples of the forms this conflicting dynamic assumes. Multiply described as the conflict of "tribalism" vs. "globalism," "Jihad vs. McWorld" (following Benjamin R. Barber's article of that title), "hard-core altruism" vs. "soft-core altruism" (after E.O. Wilson), "purity" vs. "mongrelization" (after Salmon Rushdie), and "Allegiance to Men" vs. "Allegiance to Law" (after co-framer of the US Constitution John Adams), the tension between these competing poles of human behavior has risen, and--according to the author--will continue to rise, in response to the growing interdependence of global economies, communication, migration, and environmental concerns. Her argument throughout is that "while political holism is an ideology driven by globalization, it will always be contested by tribalism of some sort." Although focused on "American Patriotism," Craige's highly readable account touches on many international and/or global issues. Among the incidents she recounts for the insight they offer into her theme are the Islamic reaction to the publication of Rushdie's SATANIC VERSES, the saga of Lt. Col. Oliver North and the Iran-Contra controversy, and NEH Director Lynne Cheney's opposition to public funding by her agency of the TV documentary "The Africans" by Ali Mazrui (an internationally distinguished, Kenyan-born political scientist at the University of Michigan). Craige's analysis of the marketing by the Bush administration of the Gulf War through an appeal to patriotism is highly instructive. She gathers together here in a meaningful context, much information that is difficult to track down, and uses it in a brilliant "rhetorical analysis" of the discourse of words and silences, actions and nonactions, and postures and policies that shaped the selling of this egregious example of tribalistic, politically dualistic aggression as a positively valorized (at least within the US) example of patriotism. In a very enlightening part of this critique, Craige also deconstructs the silence of the American corporate media concerning the dissent from the prevailing US popularity of this war demonstrated by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and US Representative from Texas Henry Gonzalez. Clark convened an International War Crimes Tribunal, consisting of twenty-two judges from eighteen nations, which charged Bush, Powell, Schwartzkopf and others with "crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other criminal acts and high crimes in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, international law, [and] the Constitution of the United States...", and found them guilty. Representa