In the first of four wartime Letters to a German Friend, French author Albert Camus explains the difference between two kinds of love one's country. The German friend spoke this way:
The greatness of my country is beyond price. Anything is good that contributes to its greatness. And in a world where everything has lost its meaning, those who, like us young Germans, are lucky enough to find a meaning in the destiny of our nation must sacrifice everything else.
In contrast,
No, Camus replied, I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.
In the first speech, the nation is the ultimate value, and the person gathers identity from the nation no matter its crimes. Here power is self-serving and is not accountable to any other perspective.
In the second speech, justice is the central value and both the nation and the person gain their identity from the struggle for justice, in spite of the nation's failings. Here power can on the best days be put in the service of justice. A people together must imagine and express the terms of justice they are willing to fight for. They must struggle on behalf of that understanding, holding themselves and the nation accountable to it as best they can.
These two characterizations of love of country seem familiar to us now, eighty years after Camus risked everything in wartime to write and publish these opening sentences of his first Letter.
The people of the United States have traditions not unlike those expressed in the second speech, but I fear that we hardly know where to locate them, how to activate them, how to create hope through them. Maybe we do.
The four Letters to a German Friend are found in the volume Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays.