The Decline of Patriotism, and How to Rebuild it - Part I

Without being taught why our system is good, especially in comparison to other systems, the average young person won’t know why it’s good and why our ancestors valued it.

Part II of this article is available here. For more of Taz’s writings, browse his Medium here.

“National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals, a necessary condition for self-improvement”

— Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country.

It seems almost undeniable that patriotism in the UK has been on the decline for many years, and now, in the year 2023, one almost has to conclude, it’s undeniably at its lowest.

Even if that’s not the case, it certainly appears to be.

In 2018, the Independent reported, “Britons are increasingly afraid to show their national pride in public for fear of ridicule or abuse”, and that “Many of those surveyed believed national pride is on the wane, with younger generations placing less importance on patriotism than ever before”.

There also seems to be an endless stream of rather uninspiring and divisive Leftist polemicists dragged onto shows like Good Morning Britain and This Morning to (often unfairly) chastise Britain, her history, and her national heroes and symbols. This seems to be done because although these people are broadly unpopular with much of the British public, they generate enough controversy that people share video clips online which generate arguments along with eyeballs for TV networks.

The most recent example was the irksome Narinder Kaur who seems to have concluded that England needs a new flag because St. George’s Cross allegedly represents the far-right and people (and, it would appear, a country) she doesn’t like, and because it isn’t ‘inclusive’ (does someone want to explain to her who a national flag is supposed to be inclusive, and therefore exclusive, of?).

Social media and the internet are also cesspools of anti-patriotic bellicosity with storm clouds of anti-Britishness cast over the national dialogue at every opportunity by hateful activists - often the same ones invited to bloviate on television - like Shola Mos-Shogbamimu.

These types of people happen to be incredibly effective on television and social media. They seem to have mastered the art of either obnoxiously shouting over their opponent or building emotional but noncomplex straw-man arguments on television (whilst often leaving their opponents befuddled at the sheer chaos of the encounter) or, whilst on social media, of encouraging their legions of online followers (who appear more numerous in the concentrated setting of social media than I think they are in the real world) to dog pile on dissenting opinions.

Increasingly, these are the sources from which young people are learning about our system of government, history and legacy, Britain’s place in the world, and how they should feel about them. The problem is the versions of and perspectives on all of these things, which they’re absorbing, are often edited to suit the perspective and ideology of those noisy and divisive (and I believe, ill-informed or dishonest) rhetoricians. As such, I’d argue the lessons being learned are based on inaccurate information, poor interpretations of events, and misguided ideology, and are broadly bad for the person learning these lessons, and bad for the nation as a whole.

Unfortunately, these ideas - because they’re emotionally stimulating if not intellectually sound - are becoming popularised amongst a poorly educated younger generation and are now finding their way into the classroom.

This poses an even greater risk to the stability and preservation of our culture, civilisation, institutions and national identity now than it ever has in the past given the ostensibly meritocratic nature of modern Britain, which sees people being drawn into the institutions that preserve it from all walks of life. In the past, those drawn into these institutions would have known why the systems they manage are good. They’d have been the most obvious beneficiaries of them and would have had an education suitable for their station in life.

Now, in an age of moral relativism, social media-induced envy and resentment, a homogenised and generalised (declining in quality) national educational curriculum, imported/globalised/Americanised social values and cultural universalism, it’s not always obvious why our way of life, culture and values are good - perhaps even better than alternatives elsewhere? - and why our ancestors have valued and tried to preserve them. There’s so much focus on the alleged negatives and such an elevated focus on non-British values that traditionally we haven’t believed in (like universal equality and diversity, the former of which has been upgraded to a moral value from a mathematical concept, and the latter to a moral value from a descriptor) that the values which have defined “Britishness” - like liberty, civilisational continuity, respect for tradition, regional particularism and national unity, constitutional and social order, human dignity, and meritocratic social mobility - have come to be overshadowed.

Without being taught why our system is good, especially in comparison to other systems, the average young person won’t know why it’s good and why our ancestors valued it. Especially given the cacophony of criticisms (which tend to beg the question about whatever the alleged failure of the system is) in which they’re stewed today.

Part II of this article is available here.