|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
the nearby defenders fall to French bayonets. The Spanish troops, having suffered heavy casualties, broke ranks and abandoned their posts. With the French troops a few yards away, Agustina herself ran forward, loaded one of the cannons and lit the fuse, shredding a wave of attackers at point-blank range. The sight of a lone woman bravely manning the cannons inspired the fleeing Spanish troops and other volunteers to return and assist her. After a bloody struggle, the French gave up the assault on Zaragoza and abandoned their siege for a few short weeks before returning to fight their way into the city house by house. Despite eventual defeat, Agustina became an inspiration not only for Spanish nationalism but also inspired folklore and artwork, including sketches by Francisco de Goya and the poetry of Lord Byron (Cook, 2006).
It seems that every society has a Samson who is willing to die with the Philistines, avenging the deeds of the nation’s enemies in a heroic death, or a King Saul who desperately fights the enemies to his last drop of blood. Every culture is blessed with those Winston Churchill referred to during the Battle of Britain with the words, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few” (Gilbert, 1992, p. 124). What is there, then, in human society that drives individuals to devote their lives to a beloved collective? What are the social grounds for the emergence of those who are motivated to do whatever it takes, even at the price of their very lives, for the benefit of the nation? How does the love of country prevail over the instinctive lust for life? What is it that has driven people throughout history, in every social group, to cast aside their personal well-being and dedicate themselves to the nation’s destiny? These are the questions that led the inquiry from which this book has come forward.
Scholars of patriotism do not always agree that it is a positive phenomenon. In fact, some of them even identify it as a source of reduction of democratic values of tolerance and inclusion. According to this perspective, patriotism contradicts equality by definition because it is based on group bias. The collective selfishness that patriotism stands for, according to its opponents, does not align with the rational perception that Emanuel Kant introduced, and what is more, it bears the intolerable justification for intergroup violence (Primoratz, 2002). The liberal