The United States is long overdue for its people to step up to a higher plateau of authenticity by abandoning the merely symbolic gesture of saluting the flag. The old pledge is shopworn and unreal. It stuck people with a public ritual empty of substance, beyond traditional sentiment and showy emotion. Saluting the flag on parade or in a public space is perfectly all right, but the spoken pledge is childish. It should be felt as high time for people to get up off their knees before a silly, tricolored rag, the beauty of which is in the eye of sheep-like beholders. For many Americans today, the flag is an object of considerable doubt and incipient fear. This is even more true for many people of other nations. The very design of our national flag’s visual appearance holds up deep ambiguity and misleading possibilities to perception and interpretation. But, like fish who do not know they swim in water, few Americans give design a moment’s thought, yet its effects on them may be deeper and more alienating than they can dream.
This ensign is so deeply engrained in our socio-cultural mentality, both conscious and unconscious, and so freighted with emotion for many, there will be little chance ever of redesigning it. Besides, who would perform the task and how might it ever get done? The original design came about by chance events, unless you imagine a hidden purpose or teleology at work in the historical development and advent of our public symbols. There is no evidence for this whatsoever, though many will be eager to suppose it.
Here is the language I propose for a proper pledge by citizens to their nation:
“I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to all the People sustained by it, in one nation, indivisible, with liberty, duty, learning and justice for all. I pledge further that our Constitution be improved only with greatest care.”
I exclude the appeal to God as unfit for a secular polity that maintains a firm wall of exclusion and separation between government and religion. I include the word “duty” as befits a nation dedicated to the liberty of its people, for there are no freedoms without corresponding responsibilities. Nor is there true justice but which is tempered by well-informed intelligence, both in legislation and judgment. Adequate knowledge is a necessary part of civic duty. Justice for all covers life, health and security for all citizens. Citizens are persons, fetuses are neither one nor the other.
It must be reiterated, that the flag is an anachronistic symbol belonging to a vanished age in which armies marched into battle with banners and drums. Military bands are largely confined to bases or to our largest naval vessels. Flags fly from poles to mark public buildings and installations housing other social institutions not strictly private except as they observe loyalty to the nation and its governments, state or federal. Lastly it should be noted that the flag is a symbol, not an institution, whereas the Constitution is our country’s founding, social and legal institution, not merely a paper document. While it has symbolic values and functions, it is much more than a mere symbol. Flags shrivel and pale in such comparison.
No Comments