Editing Patriotism (section)

==History==
[[File:Paul Stahr - Be Patriotic, Sign your Country's Pledge to Save the Food.jpg|thumb|An American poster with a patriotic theme (1917), issued by the [[United States Food Administration|U.S. Food Administration]] during World War I]]
[[File:I Want You for U.S. Army by James Montgomery Flagg.jpg|thumb|A patriotic World War I [[United States Army]] recruitment poster (1917)]]
The notions of [[civic virtue]] and group dedication can be found in cultures globally throughout history.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Patriotism – 401 Words |url=https://www.studymode.com/essays/Patriotism-55662260.html|url-access=subscription |access-date=2023-02-06 |website=Studymode}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=July 2023}} For [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinkers of 18th-century Europe, loyalty to the state was chiefly considered in contrast to loyalty to the [[Catholic Church|Church]]. It was argued that clerics should not be allowed to teach in public schools since their {{lang|fr|patrie}} was heaven, so they could not inspire a love of the homeland in their students. One of the most influential proponents of this notion of patriotism was [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]].<ref name="books.google.com"/>

Enlightenment thinkers also criticized what they saw as the excess of patriotism. In 1774, [[Samuel Johnson]] published ''The Patriot'', a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel".<ref>{{Citation|last=Boswell|first=James|author-link=James Boswell|title=The Life of Samuel Johnson|title-link=Life of Samuel Johnson|year=1791|publisher=The Modern Library|location=New York|isbn=|page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.262597/page/n540/mode/1up 525]}}</ref> [[James Boswell]], who reported this comment in his ''[[Life of Johnson]]'', does not provide context for the quote, and it has therefore been argued that Johnson was in fact attacking a false use of "patriotism" by contemporaries such as [[John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute]] (the patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson spoke elsewhere in favor of what he considered "true" patriotism.<ref name="Griffin p. 21">{{Citation|last=Griffin|first=Dustin|title=Patriotism and Poetry in Eighteenth-Century Britain|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=2005|isbn=978-0-521-00959-1}}</ref> However, there is no direct evidence to contradict the widely held belief that Johnson's famous remark was a criticism of patriotism itself.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}