is assumed and referred to
as well understood. Each state now regards itself as the leader
of civilization, the best, the freest, and the wisest, and all
others as inferior. Within a few years our own
man-on-the-curbstone has learned to class all foreigners of the
Latin peoples as "dagos," and "dago" has become an epithet of
contempt. These are all cases of ethnocentrism.
+19. Patriotism+ is a sentiment which belongs to modern states.
It stands in antithesis to the mediaeval notion of catholicity.
Patriotism is loyalty to the civic group to which one belongs by
birth or other group bond. It is a sentiment of fellowship and
cooperation in all the hopes, work, and suffering of the group.
Mediaeval catholicity would have made all Christians an in-group
and would have set them in hostility to all Mohammedans and other
non-Christians. It never could be realized. When the great modern
states took form and assumed control of societal interests, group
sentiment was produced in connection with those states. Men
responded willingly to a demand for support and help from an
institution which could and did serve interests. The state drew
to itself the loyalty which had been given to men (lords), and it
became the object of that group vanity and antagonism which had
been ethnocentric. For the modern man patriotism has become one
of the first of duties and one of the noblest of sentiments. It
is what he owes to the state for what the state does for him, and
the state is, for the modern man, a cluster of civic institutions
from which he draws security and conditions of welfare. The
masses are always patriotic. For them the old ethnocentric
jealousy, vanity, truculency, and ambition are the strongest
elements in patriotism. Such sentiments are easily awakened in a
crowd. They are sure to be popular. Wider knowledge always proves
that they are not based on facts. That we are good and others are
bad is never true. By history, literature, travel, and science
men are made cosmopolitan. The selected classes of all states
become associated; they intermarry. The differentiation by states
loses importance. All states give the same security and
conditions of welfare to all. The standards of civic institutions
are the same, or tend to become such, and it is a matter of pride
in each state to offer civic status and opportunities equal t
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