| I find myself disagreeing as well, for much the same reasons. However, I do think that America is unique in that the rest of the world values brains, but the US seems to instinctively distrust it. My own totally unscientific pop psychology theory is as follows: I lived in Germany for a few years. It is easy to sense a lot of national guilt. Dark history, I'll try to avoid Godwin. So modern day Germans are not as care free flag happy as other nations. Now consider how patriotic Americans are. Now think about American history, there have been some great high points. But what about all the low points, just of the top of my head: - Pox blankets. Read up on the story of Ishi the last Yahi. - Slavery. - Vietnam. - Etc. So can you be both deep and happy go lucky patriotic in America?
I am not saying no American should be proud of their country. In fact, I think America has done a lot good.
But American pride can be complicated if you know too much.
So maybe that's why there's this almost reflexive anti-intellectualism? |
This is an impossible question to answer. It depends too much on the definitions of "deep" and "patriotic"... words which are fuzzy enough to span continents. "Patriot", in particular, is almost impossible to define objectively... you start out with some reasonable definition, and ten minutes later you discover -- possibly to your horror -- that the word has shifted to mean "someone who supports my position on Issue X". Everyone agrees that George Washington was, objectively, a patriot -- except for his Tory contemporaries.
But, if we insist on trying to answer this unanswerable question, my answer would have to be "yes". Give me one or another popularly-accepted definition of "happy-go-lucky patriot" and "intellectual" and I'll bet you we can find plenty of people who fit both categories.