The English could get very jingoistic, but always made room for doubt, even fear, of their own hubris. In Rudyard Kipling, these tendencies manifested throughout the life and work of the same man.

Early America could produce a “my country right or wrong” mentality, but it was always bound to a particular vision of the republic.

They differed- The English had a rooted, ethnically influenced patriotism, which made room for recognizing the Englishness of eccentric Marxist academics. [too much, when hiring them for government work]. The US, by the 20th century far too much up its own backside redefining its nationhood in terms of state ideology, was less able to do this. I take from this the virtues of remembering an ethnic and cultural identity over a values-based one.

We’re having this in Canada now. Having long defined our identity in purely values terms and dismissed all others, even eliminated their possibility, the left now turns on values based patriotism as well and redefines it as right wing.

We are now a “post-national state”. True story.