Patriotism is a virtue

I apologize if my argument was brief. It was the holidays, so I presented it in a distilled form. I will address it more in depth. First, my opponent's definition of patriotism is a bit flimsy. But let's address what he has presented: "Love of and devotion to one's country." There is nothing in the definition that requires that one love one's country to the detriment of any other. Yet my opponent has presented that as a necessary consequence. Just because something can be misused toward a nefarious end doesn't make it not a virtue. My opponent's argument seems to consist of simply stating bad things and attributing them to patriotism. Let us elaborate(1): 1. Special affection for one's own country 2. A sense of personal identification with the country 3. Special concern for the well-being of the country 4. Willingness to sacrifice to promote the country's good Second, patriotism is different from nationalism. There are things my opponent attributes to nationalism as though it is the same. The precise difference is its own debate, but to use the terms interchangeably without support cannot be tolerated. The argument: Humans are social beings. We form relationships with our own kind. Contrast this to some insects or reptiles that live individualistic lives and are antagonistic toward their own kind, regardless of relation. However, no social being is social to the point of being friendly toward all members of its species. Even though we are social, we still have an "us" versus "them" mentality among our own species. This is innate and inherent: natural. Studies have shown that people naturally form groups and naturally favor their own group and discriminate against others (2). We also depend on the groups we form. Most obviously, we are completely helpless for several years and will die without the care of our own species. More abstractly, we depend on the artificial constructs of our society. Individually, we are weak. Together we are strong. My opponent has suggested that love for an abstract and distant concept as country is not as "natural" as love for a relative. This suggests a dichotomy between the two. Is this accurate? It leaves blank why we could ever develop attachment towards those unrelated to us. For example: the fact that we bond with those we are not related to (or at least are distantly related to) to form reproductive groups. That is a different kind of "love." We love our relations, because they carry our genes and we have a vested interest in ensuring their propagation. We can come to love those not related to us, because we understand at an instinctual level that variety is necessary for the long-term survival of the group. Understanding cooperation between unrelated humans has been a difficult task for sociobiologists but this phenomenon exists, even if we have yet to pinpoint its cause and history. What does this have to do with patriotism? A country is an abstract concept like groups of unrelated individuals. Once you start cooperating outside the circle of your relations, all groups become abstract entities that are arbitrary. We form groups based on where we live, who we work with, the sports teams we like, the foods we eat, the games we play, the entertainment we watch, etc. This is indisputably natural. No one tells us to do this; we just do it. Patriotism is simply one form of this behavior, behavior that is necessary for our survival.One expression of "group love" is the willingness to make sacrifices for the survival of the group: to defend it. What's the point of forming groups if we do not put energy and effort in maintaining and protecting them? A collection of disparate individuals that do not protect their group are helpless against the advances of a collection that does. Perhaps, at some point in the future, humans will no longer be an aggressive species, and patriotism an unneeded attribute, but we are hardly there. How does this tie into being "morally praiseworthy?" There is no agreement as to what behaviors are necessarily moral. But generally speaking, morals are those behaviors that are to be encouraged: what we "should" do. My opponent has criticized patriotism for detracting from our universal humanity and dividing it into groups. This suggests that recognizing universal humanity is something which is morally praiseworthy. This is the direction we are going, from the family units and tribes of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, to the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia, to ever larger political units. There have certainly been larger political units like the empires of Alexander the Great, the Romans, and the Mongols. Yet these were not political units that engendered patriotism. A significant problem, and factor in their falls, was the inherent disloyalty of the member groups. Kill the head, and the empire would fracture. Now consider America. Should the federal government be abolished, America, as a unit and country, would still exist. The head would reform due to the efforts of the patriotic body. Patriotism not only provides a survival advantage to the humans that express it, but to the groups of which it is a target. If we recognize that the groups we form are growing larger, then if we are ever to recognize our universal humanity, this is something that lies in our future. It is not something that could exist today, if only we removed the barriers to it, it is something we must grow into. Since large nations are a step in that direction, and patriotism is a necessary element of that step, then patriotism is a necessary element to ultimately recognizing our universal humanity and, thus, morally praiseworthy. Rebuttals1. Patriotism and NationalismI simply restate that these terms are not interchangeable, and my opponent clearly references nationalism as the cause. 2. Extreme patriotism.To say that behavior taken to an extreme and abused is harmful does not necessarily translate that any and all expressions of that behavior or that behavior in generally, is harmful. 3. Patriotism is not naturalI've addressed this in my above argument. Human beings naturally form abstract groups based upon all sorts of abstract criteria. 4. Patriotism is arbitraryHere my opponent uses the measure of objective and universal morality. This was not stated as an accepted measure for this debate and should not be accepted just because my opponent says so. Subjective and relative moral systems exist, at least in theory. My opponent cannot simply dismiss them. The point about altruism is taken: "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others" Is not an aspect of patriotism an unselfish regard for or devotion to, the welfare of a nation and its inhabitants? Would this not make patriotism a form of altruism? 5. Patriotism minimizes national shortcomingsProviding examples of how countries attempt to minimize their shortcomings doesn't show why patriotism is the cause of that. My opponent is just simply stating a fact and then blaming that fact on patriotism. In fact, patriotism can inspire people to deliberately criticize their country in order to make it better, in order to fix those shortcomings. Consider: "So sometimes patriotism can take the form of "tough love," in which you have to criticize your government and/or society in order to get it to wake up and improve itself – be the best that it can be." (3) 6. Patriotism distracts people from their common humanityThe group to which the Founding Fathers were patriotic to already existed, even if it wasn't a politically recognized entity. The goal of the Separatism is merely to have the group which is the focus of the patriotism to be recognized as an independent entity in its own right. The group, as an abstract entity, nevertheless still exists. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu...[2] http://www.spring.org.uk...[3] http://www.shmoop.com...