The Pledge_ A History of the Pledge of Allegiance - Jeffrey Owen Jones [78]
If the Pledge is intrinsically bound up with school, it is not merely for its educational properties or to teach grammatical or civic literacy. More important, the words recited at the beginning of a school day serve a ritual function. Like the National Anthem before a ball game, the words of the Pledge form a moment outside mundane time, demarking one part of the day from another. It signals a ritual start, and in that it gains power beyond the meaning of its words.
The Pledge does not end with grade school. Throughout the country, in city councils, state legislatures, meetings of benevolent associations such as the Rotary Club or the Kiwanis, patriotic groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, or DAR, and Boy and Girl Scouts, the U.S. Congress, at the start of political conventions the Pledge of Allegiance is the beginning of business. The business of America: with liberty and justice for all.
And for both children and adults recitation of the Pledge is also more than just a starting gun to a hectic day or a meeting; it is a “community building” exercise, a momentary “coming together” before we pursue the individual liberties the Pledge confirms. The recitation of the Pledge—a pledge to the flag, after all—confirms our membership in a group, a “republic for which it stands,” and to the smaller group of the classroom or the assembly floor. We gain power in a group, which is the seat of nationalism, a country coming together. Aren’t we stronger for it as a nation? The schoolchildren who chant the Pledge together are learning their first civics lesson: participation. And while there are patriots who recite the Pledge by themselves—and it’s too early in the Internet era to know its impact on our gathering rituals—the oath remains, at bottom, a communal mantra.
Whether this participation can or should be coerced is probably the only question that remains unanswered—and is, most likely, unanswerable. Most Americans would agree that the Pledge is a wonderful summation of American values; many believe, though, that its mandatory recitation undermines those values. That question promises to be an ongoing, possibly endless, dialogue, and no doubt our Supreme Court will be called on to make another judgment call, just as presidential candidates, depending on the temper of the times, will undoubtedly continue to wrap themselves in the flag—and its Pledge.
In the meantime, like the National Anthem, the flag, and the bald eagle, the Pledge belongs to the country’s collection of patriotic symbols, enjoying solid public approval ratings. According to a 2008 Gallup Poll, 77 percent of Americans feel that children should be expected to recite the Pledge in school every morning. (There is some partisanship in this number: 89 percent of Republicans want it recited, but only 62 percent of Democrats do.)
But what is patriotism? What is its function? How do we come by it? In order to answer those questions, it is helpful to reconsider for a moment the recent history of the use of the Pledge in our politics, during which, it’s safe to say, both the best and worst of patriotic impulses were on display. We can, as the aphorism has it, “wrap” ourselves in the flag, as a way to protect us from the elements or shield us from criticism—or prevent us from answering the tough questions.
So it was in 1964 when Barry Goldwater’s political commercial featured schoolchildren reciting the pledge intercut with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatening to destroy America. Khrushchev complained that his “We will bury you” quote was often taken out of context, but those protests mattered little in the frenzy of an American presidential campaign.