“My Mother, Drunk or Sober:” George Orwell on Nationalism and Patriotism

Like a few million other people, I consider George Orwell one of my favorite political writers, but I don’t riffle through his books, looking for wisdom whenever a political crisis comes along. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, however, I did reach for a volume of his essays, specifically the volume that contains his 1945 “Notes on Nationalism.” I hadn’t read the essay in years, but I thought the distinction Orwell makes between nationalism and patriotism might be useful in thinking about the “blame-America-first” part of the American left. These leftists see only one major problem in the world: the United States with its unlimited power and imperial arrogance. Their initial response to the terrorist attacks: “We had it coming.”

Joanne Barkan is a writer based in New York City and Truro, Massachusetts.

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