The Educating for American Democracy roadmap asks all educators (and policymakers–and perhaps students) to address this challenge:
“How can we offer an account of U.S. constitutional democracy that is simultaneously honest about the wrongs of the past without falling into cynicism, and appreciative of the founding of the United States without tipping into adulation?”
I suppose my personal assessment of America’s record would lean toward the critical side, emphasizing the centrality of conquest and slavery in the American story and the oscillation of liberation and subjugation in our history. For example, I would want students seriously to consider “the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil.”
That does not mean that my view is entirely negative. I once tried to capture my conflicted take in a palindrome:
America, you Jerusalem reborn!
No profligate, old-world, ruined people, you.
Behold: peace. You’re principle without pain and dishonor.
Dishonor and pain without principle: your peace.
Behold, you people: ruined world!
Old, profligate. No reborn Jerusalem you, America.
How to assess America is an appropriate topic for disagreement and debate. Educating for American Democracy invites students to debates of this kind. The Tocquevillan concept of “reflective patriotism” is broad enough to encompass various responses to America’s overall record.
But my question expands to three related ones.
First, the value-judgment itself: How should we reason about America’s record? How should we think about progress and failure, sin and redemption, promissory notes and accumulated balances? Is it helpful to evaluate the US in comparison to other countries, including the one from which we won independence or the former British colony just to our north? Should we still tremble for our country when we reflect that God is just?
Second, a normative/conceptual issue: Should patriotism depend on a positive assessment of a country’s history? I believe that I am a patriot, and I view my work on topics like civics as an everyday example of patriotism. I’ve described my motivations for visiting Kyiv and Nablus in 2025–in opposition to my government’s policies–as patriotic. But I do not base my commitment to my national community on a positive view its past. That seems too contingent to me, like loving one’s children because they’re so well behaved.
Besides, I would advocate constitutional patriotism as a virtue for people whose national histories are clearly problematic, such as citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. Like other forms of love, love of country is about concern and sacrifice, not about giving the object a high rating.
Finally, an empirical question: Would teaching students to hold a more favorable view of America cause them to act more patriotically?
As with most empirical questions, the answer is probably: It depends. One set of variables involves the inputs: requirements, assignments, pedagogical methods, and teachers who are prepared for the subject in various ways. Another set of variables involves the students, who vary in age, background assumptions, and experiences with our polity. (For instance, it is likely that America should be presented differently to kindergarteners and teenagers.) And a third set of variables measures the outcomes, which may include beliefs, habits, and dispositions.
I have not found compelling empirical research on this topic. One body of evidence that is gaining attention involves measuring two different psychological constructs. One construct is identifying with one’s country, measured with items like “Being an American is an important part of my self-image” and “In general I’m glad to be an American.” The other construct is national narcissism, an internationally replicated scale that captures a feeling that one’s country has superior qualities that are being disparaged, particularly by foreigners (Cichocka & Cislak 2020). While national identification correlates with support for constitutional democracy, national narcissism predicts authoritarian populist views (Marchlewska et al 2022).
This cross-sectional evidence does not tell us whether schools can promote national identification, nor whether they can do so without enhancing national narcissism. I would favor patriotism without narcissism if schools can accomplish that. But I think that one of the most serious threats to our republic is national narcissism, and I would guard vigilantly against it.
The palindrome is distantly inspired by Yehuda Alharizi’s “Palindrome for a Patron” [12th or 13th century] as translated by Peter Cole and cited by Harold Bloom in “The Lost Jewish Culture,” The New York Review of Books, June 28, 2007. Other sources: Aleksandra Cichocka, & Aleksandra Cislak. “Nationalism as collective narcissism.” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 34 (2020): 69-74; Marchlewska, Marta, Aleksandra Cichocka, Aleksandra Furman, and Aleksandra Cislak. “Who respects the will of the people? Support for democracy is linked to high secure national identity but low national narcissism.” British Journal of Social Psychology 61, no. 2 (2022): 599-621. See also: American exceptionalism, revisited; anxieties about American exceptionalism; Teaching Civics in Kyiv; more on teaching patriotism (2006); a pluralistic 250th and a palindrome (2007).