I had some interesting thoughts this morning after reading an article I would normally not bother to read. It was talking about a specific historical flag, but my thoughts were turned to the flag generally and then to the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s the statement that got my brain moving:
The flag is an American flag — 13 stripes, a blue square canton with 13 white stars surrounding an American bald eagle. So far, this flag isn’t strange for its day. In the 19th century, almost anything goes in handmade national flags. (emphasis added)
Suddenly I am released from the idea of a standardized flag and considering the flag more abstractly as a representation of something to believe in. The nation represented by all those handmade national flags was the same, and the symbolism of that nation was consistent across flags (stars, stripes, red, white, and blue), but people felt free to add things to the flag that helped represent their feelings regarding the nation (an American bald eagle in the field of blue being an apparently common addition back then).
If the flag need not be universally orthodox then a pledge of allegiance to the flag makes less sense. I’ve discussed my thoughts on that previously and been surprised at how many people would wish to change one thing or another in the pledge. We all know about people who wish to have the words “under God” stricken from the pledge but there are others who would remove the assertion that the nation is indivisible. While I very much appreciate the fact that our current pledge is not directed at a party, or political leader my new perspective on flags makes me echo the sentiment of Connor:
I’ve never understood why we pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth.
If we are not going to direct our allegiance at a piece of cloth, a political party, or an administration, I wonder where we would direct our allegiance, and what a pledge would look like. While I am not suggesting we make any efforts to reform our pledge, my thoughts this morning led me to this (and I would love to hear what others think about it):
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the republic it defined, a nation dedicated under God to the promise of liberty and justice for all.
I like it! 🙂 Simple, concise… I might change “defined” to a present tense, since its text still defines one (just not what we have right now ;), but that’s the only part that gives me any pause… 🙂 Awesome! 🙂
I had trouble with the tense there as well. My fear was that using the present tense might imply that current reality is the measure against which we interpret the Constitution. Obviously I settled on using the past tense, but I’m not completely settled because that has problems of its own. (For example, does past tense imply that we are not committed to the amendments to the Constitution?)
Thanks for the vote of affirmation.
Yeah, it’s a problematic clause… I’ve been pondering it for the last little while, and I’ll let you know if something else workable occurs to me! 🙂
Good post, David. I’m wondering, why not just pledge allegiance to the United States of America? Also, I don’t see the need for the phrase “under God”. It’s divisive and adds nothing except to allow one side to say “hurray for our side!”
The reason I am hesitant to simply pledge allegiance to the United States of America is that leaves the question – what am I pledging allegiance to? Is it the current government? the geographic space? the people? or possibly the ideal? One of the reasons that I was in favor of pledging to the flag and what it represents is that the flag is concrete (at least that had been my thinking) and represented ideals that I favor. In a representative government there is no concrete thing to pledge allegiance to in the government – it can all change with the next election – unless it is the foundation of the government, hence my placing of allegiance in the Constitution.
As for “under God” I recognize that it can be seen as divisive, but I think it does add something to a pledge to acknowledge that the nation is accountable to something higher than the majority or the present – neither one of which provide very solid footing for an immovable standard. Besides, that phrase is meant to describe the nation defined by the Constitution (which is what we are pledging allegiance to) and the founders were very clear that they were building a nation with an eye towards the will of God in the matter.
If you change “defined” to “defines” and remove “under God” (which technically the Constitution specifically avoids mentioning), then it would be OK with me. The nation is accountable to something greater than the majority of its people. It wasn’t at its founding but now it is accountable to the world as well since our actions as a nation no longer can be viewed outside the context of the greater world in which we live. The Constitution was not designed as an immovable standard because the Founders understood there was no such thing. They were building a nation not trying to fulfill the unknowable will of a God about whom they disagreed.
I don’t think you can say that the Constitution avoids mentioning God, only that it does not mention God. I do agree that the Constitution was not intended to be an immovable standard – it was intended to be a standard that could be modified to fit changing needs but it was intended to be a consistent and reliable foundation – which we have abandoned in many ways.
From Wikipedia Pledge of Allegiance
” “Under God” was officially incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance June 14, 1954 by a Joint Resolution of Congress amending § 7 of the Flag Code enacted in 1942.”
We are a nation of many religions and beliefs, why not “Under Olympus” or “Under Satan” or “Under Science” or for atheists “Under Nothingness”. Separation of church and state has a reason.
I know the origins of the phrase. So why not “Under Olympus” or any of the other options? For one thing, God is a generic term – it is not tied to a specific religion – it can refer to the deity acknowledged by the Muslims as well as the deity recognized by Christians or a deity associated with Hindu belief – that is not true of Olympus and Satan is generally acknowledged as a negative entity rather than a positive one.
David, that’s a bit disingenuous. The “under God” phrase was added during the anti-Communist craze of the 1950’s to contrast a notion of a Christian America to godless Communism. The multi-culturalism of today was not present in 1954. That said, the debate over the UG phrase clouds the larger issue of requiring a pledge of any kind in a free society. The original pledge, sans God, was the creation of a Baptist socialist minister in response to a boy’s magazine’s attempt to sell American flags and American nationalism. Should we be continuing to market nationalism? Is nationalism still desirable?
That last question, Charles, is most pertinent when we remember how wrong it can go when taken to the extreme. I recently watched a Czech movie about the Nazi years, and noticed how so many people simply went along rather than make waves and be singled out. It caused me to think about our own country now and how many of us were accused of being unpatriotic when we opposed the Iraq war. It’s a very good point to consider.
The question was not why was the phrase “under God” added to the pledge (the answer to that was essentially “red scare”), rather it was why “under God” as opposed to “Under Olympus” or “Under Satan” etc. and the answer to that is that “God” is the generic title for any deity in our language.
As for your questions – should we be requiring a pledge in a free society or marketing nationalism? No, a free society should not mandate that people be reciting a pledge or oath except when they are seeking to gain citizenship (meaning at the time citizenship is granted) and even then we don’t use the Pledge of Allegiance. (We have an Oath of Citizenship.) As for marketing nationalism, I think it is important for us to feel some pride of ownership so that we strive to improve and maintain our country, but nationalism (“my country always has my support whether it is in the right or not”) is not a desirable thing.