Congratulations to Troy Kickler for the successful launch of his N.C. history lectures.
A Raleigh audience heard Monday from noted historian Wilfred McClay, who discussed the “Complex Roots of American Patriotism.”
Among his primary points:
The Americans of the revolutionary generation did not need instruction in what their Declaration declared. The Declaration was first and foremost a kind of press release to the world, which attempted to put into words what most Americans believed and embodied in their way of life.
For our young people to know about it is indispensable. But the point is that just as needful and perhaps more needful is the recognition that there can be no meaningful patriotism in a society whose most privileged young people have no knowledge of the past, no sense of their connection to it, and even less respect for it.
McClay stresses the importance of memory — and consequently history — in the preservation of uniquely American patriotism. You can hear more of his theories in an upcoming edition of Carolina Journal Radio.
