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I am currently staying at a highly eclectic hotel in Quechee, Vermont, where the food is nothing short of fantastic. The crispy duck I had on my first night here was, quite possibly, the best thing I’ve eaten since moving to the US in 2005. 1— this is how many comments there are on this paragraph. Click to read them.
The chef-owner is French, and her husband, who runs front of house, is British. They have been in the US for twenty years or more and, in honor of those facts, the hotel flies three flags: those of France, the UK, and the USA.
Similarly, it’s common to see both Irish and American flags flown at an Irish bar, or flags of Mexico and the US at a Mexican restaurant, while Outback restaurants often fly both American and Australian flags.
Inclusiveness
This is surely what flags are for in peacetime: as symbols of celebration and inclusiveness. Stetson takes a similar approach both in the horseshoe and in the Great Hall, where the flags of every US state and territory are flown alongside all the flags that have been used to represent Florida.
The underlying theme to all these instances is, of course, that more than one flag is flown. The symbolism involved is concerned with unity through diversity. But what exactly does it mean when a home or business flies just the US flag?
Just to be clear, I’m not asking that just as a setup line for a gag. It’s a genuine question. What does it mean? 3— this is how many comments there are on this paragraph. Click to read them.
One AirBnB, for example, at which I stayed en route to Vermont at the beginning of this trip, was flying the US flag. I presume that, since this was in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which has a particularly close relationship with the US Army, this is intended to symbolize solidarity with those in the military. Perhaps the family even has a member who is a currently serving or who has done so in the past.
But it seems unlikely that that is the reason for every business or family whom I see flying the US flag.
Patriotism?
Some readers might argue that the reason is surely obvious; it is intended as a patriotic celebration of the United States. But here’s my problem with that suggestion: almost everyone I know who flies the US flag isn’t shy about letting everyone know just how much they hate everything related to the federal government.
Now you might say that there is more to the US than the federal government, but the stars and stripes are symbolic precisely of the fact that the people (and the states) have chosen, for some purposes, to delegate certain functions to a federal government. It really doesn’t mean anything else.
Indeed, the original US Constitution — the document that set out the very foundations of the United States — is concerned solely with the powers granted to the federal government, while the Bill of Rights is concerned solely with imposing explicit limits on those powers. So I can certainly see why the US flag is flown on federal government property.
Toxicity
But why do individuals who complain daily about the federal swamp
and its overreach
want to publicly celebrate the very thing that they claim to despise?
I ask this because, to a European, such flying of national flags in the absence of a special occasion is not something to be celebrated. It is warlike behavior. In Europe during peacetime, such behavior is associated with a toxic, pathological nationalism that is itself associated with the rise of fascism or xenophobia. In the UK, for example, pretty much the only people currently displaying the Union flag on its own will be supporters of Brexit.
This meaning of such behavior is recognized not just in Europe. A few years ago, for example, a Canadian friend came down to Florida. On one occasion, we were passing an automobile dealership that was flying the most enormous US flag. He was visibly uncomfortable. What’s that, Tim?
he asked. It’s a flag
, I answered helpfully. Yes, I can see that. But what’s it doing there?
I had to admit that I had no idea, and that I had wondered the same thing myself. I still don’t understand it.
Lessons
After all, the other flags that tend to get flown in the US are the flags of the old Confederacy and associated organizations, and the flags of individual states. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Yankee flag flown, though presumably it is somewhere.) The symbolism in each such case is of separatism, difference, and even isolationism. As a non-American, such displays still always make me uncomfortable.
And maybe that’s just my problem. If I choose to live here, then maybe I just have to deal with the few things that I don’t like.
But I don’t think it is just my problem. Some people apparently view the rise of the would-be Greenland speculator as coming out of nowhere: a gross anomaly whose obvious disregard for basic proprieties makes him fundamentally un-American. But I think they’re missing the point.
In a society that considers it generally acceptable to fly symbols of separatism on a day-to-day basis, the rise of politicians like 45 has always seemed to me to be all too possible. It’s surely time for more people to remove the flags from their eyes and take a look at events in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe.
Tim — Your suggestion that the flag represents the existence of the federal government, which many of us are unhappy with at the moment, surprised me. Though I can see your point, and your reasoning makes sense, the federal government itself is not at all what I’ve ever associated with the American flag. I’m going to attempt to tell you how I view the American flag and why I embrace the idea of flying it year round as a symbol of diversity and acceptance, and certainly not separatism and isolation.
I am the daughter of a Navy veteran. My father flew the American flag every day in every home we ever lived in. But even then, I don’t think it had as much to do with his service as it did with the idea of unity in general. And, by unity, I don’t mean exclusion of others. In fact, the flag represents the unity of the various states, despite the significant differences between the citizens of those states.
In many venues (school, girl scouts, sporting events, holiday celebrations, boating classes) I learned the various protocols surrounding the flag. I also learned that accepting the principles for which the flag stood meant allowing people to violate these protocols without repercussions. During all of these lessons the flag was portrayed as a symbol of acceptance of diversity, and the understanding that the United States was a group of very diverse states composed of very diverse citizens, yet we were all part of the larger whole — the country, not the government. It was also a symbol of freedom, and the idea that all who wanted the freedom that our Constitution protects were welcome.
The symbolism of the flag was never more evident as I saw it on 9/11. As I left the courthouse where I was working after we shut down early, I drove home and saw flags lining the streets. Almost every house I went by was flying the American flag. Those who had the ability to do so were flying it at half mast, but the message was clear – we are all part of this country, despite our differences. And when there is a threat to that unity, to any of the members of our country, no matter who they are or where they are, we all share that pain and we will all stand together.
I realize that some may see the flying of the flag in the days after 9/11 as a symbol of war or a sign that we must protect ourselves from the intrusion of others. But, as one who was taught that the stars and stripes represent the coming together of multiple states with many different people and ideas, the war-like protection-focused symbolism just isn’t there in my mind. To me, that flag is a symbol of diversity and acceptance.
So, back to the point about the flag not being representative of the federal government. If the people of this country ever chose to revolt against the federal government in an organized manner, I would expect we would do so while flying the American flag – as a symbol of who we are and what we believe about the way we should embrace those who share our core beliefs about freedom and unity. Our challenge these days is the divide between people whose core beliefs about freedom and unity are restricted to only certain groups of people. Though we might all feel the same way about the general principles the flag represents, there are some major conflicts about the way those principles are interpreted.
Linda, thanks very much for the explanation. I can understand what you say, but I don’t find it particularly reassuring for two reasons.
First, I note that you refer to a family connection with the military. I can certainly appreciate why this would be important to you and, in fact, I mentioned something similar in my original post. But (a) the military is, of course, part of the federal government, and (b) the military is, well, military. Its very job is inextricably linked with war.
Second, the point you make about 9-11 sums up for me the level of unease I feel. Immediately after 9-11, the US had a level of international support and empathy that remains quite unprecedented. We will never know what could have been achieved if it had built on that. (After all, it was far from being the first Western country to suffer a major act of terrorism.) Instead, however, it declared a “War on Terrorism”. This has led to an increasing demonization of people who are seen as “other”, which has made the US almost as an international pariah and left Americans significant less safe than they were before.
Tim — While I understand your reactions to these events and to the examples I provided, the war aspect was not immediately present in the immediate response to 9/11. And, though I understand how the rest of the world may interpret our flying the flag as warlike or isolationist, my point is that many of us (I wish I could say all, but I am sure that is not the case) do not consider war or the federal government, or even the military background, any part of why we display the flag. To do so would mean the flag is somehow a representation of our country as threatening or menacing. Some may think we are, but personally, I have never connected the flag with those characteristics. In fact, the only reason I mentioned the military is that is the main way I learned all of the protocol involved in flying the flag appropriately. And, the fact that the military is part of the federal government really made no difference to those who had no choice about serving (my father was part of the generation subject the draft). He spoke of his service and his reverence toward the flag in terms of principles that it stood for - as I've described earlier - not as anything representing the actual government.
I'm sure, given the social and political climate today, it is difficult to understand that not all of us use the flag to send a message to those with whom we may have disagreements - political or otherwise. Some of us still use it to show that we are all part of a larger whole that has lots of variety and diversity, yet still has some common ideals.
Hearing your perspective makes me think that we don't often consider how our actions in this country are viewed by those who do not live here. To be honest, I never considered how the rest of the world would view my flying the American flag. Doing so was not meant to convey anything to people from other countries, but only to fellow Americans. (Maybe that is part of the naïveté that comes from growing up in rural Vermont, and having very little interaction with foreigners until well into my adulthood.) Thank you for pointing out how this practice is interpreted by those who are from elsewhere but spend time here.
Unrelated to the flag issues: Spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Quechee, Vermont twenty years ago . . . it was all good until the stomach flu took out the entire family, one by one, and I became intimately familiar with the contents of my children's stomachs from their post-holiday reappearances. But the Gorge was lovely. And on the flag note, I have to say my experience and reaction are completely different from Linda's. I was one of those kids who got punished in high school for refusing to stand and recite the pledge. It took a lot to get noticed in my barbaric, Lord of the Flies public high school, and the flag issue was a real button-pusher. I don't have good feelings about the flag, but I frequently raise one at the cabin in Minnesota just because my dad always did. He was an anti-war veteran of WWII, and he was not born in the US. Make of this what you like; really, I'm just fascinated that people's reactions can be so wildly diverse. Finally, there was no "northern" flag during the US Civil War. It was essentially the version we use today but with more like 35 stars to reflect the number of states at that time. I grew up in a Deep South town where lots of people still distrusted that Yankee flag, and would not celebrate the 4th of July. What a world.