A response to The Harper Review’s autumn 2024 proposition, “You should love your country.”
Dear editors,
It is World War I, and Frederic Henry, an American, has joined the Italian army. Though Henry is not on the front lines—he is a lieutenant in the ambulance corps—a shell has nonetheless cost him his kneecap and fractured his skull, and he is holed up in a field hospital for recovery. The priest from his mess, a native of southern Italy, comes to visit, bringing gifts to make the days pass by a little easier: mosquito netting, vermouth, English-language newspapers. The two get to talking about God. “You do not love Him at all?” the priest asks.
“‘I am afraid of him in the night sometimes.’
“‘You should love Him.’
“‘I don’t love much.’
“‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You do. . . . When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.’
“‘I don’t love.’
“‘You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.’”
The exchange is laden, in part because both Henry and the priest fit the bill of doing things for, sacrificing for, serving. The priest has made a pilgrimage to see Henry, bringing newspapers in the lieutenant’s native language, though the priest speaks only Italian, and vermouth, though the hard-drinking Henry has to hide it from the nurses. Bringing these gifts is not the priest’s duty, but his wish.
Likewise, Henry has traveled to Europe and given up relative peace to join the war effort: the States are not yet involved. He has seriously sacrificed: he will be bedridden for some time and shell-shocked even longer. As the priest acts out of love for Henry, Henry appears to act out of love for Italy, or perhaps for some greater cause.
Yet Henry knows he does not. “I don’t love,” he repeats. (God is dropped from the conversation now.) Even if Henry sacrifices, serves, and does things for Italy, he’s missing something: the “wish” the priest describes, that inner feeling compelling him to do things for something or someone, whether or not he “should.” We can be obliged—by a military draft, a contract we’ve signed, a promise we’ve made—to serve, sacrifice, and do things. In that limited sense, we should love our country. But “should” implies that we could equally choose not to honor an obligation.
So when the priest tells Henry he should love, whether he means God or country, it has no force. You can’t make someone wish or feel something; the love the priest describes cannot be chosen or, indeed, left aside. Instead, it simply bubbles up: an overflowing sense of gratitude for something or someone, a gift that compels you to give in return. The priest, realizing this as he speaks, retreats from “you should” to “you will.” When that kind of wish arises, acting accordingly is not a matter of choosing to fulfill a promise that you know you should make good on. Instead, you simply will, whether you have an obligation to or not.
It’s easy enough to imagine what this means for a person. But it’s harder to apply this to a country, which can seem nebulous, abstract, maybe unreal. So it makes sense that the love Lieutenant Henry will experience down the line is of a woman, not of Italy. Maybe the apparent absurdity of loving a country is why Henry, seemingly arbitrarily, has joined the Italian forces rather than staying in his home country. Without love to compel him, his service and sacrifice could just as well be directed anywhere.
But even if Henry doesn’t love any country—and even though he can’t be made to—that doesn’t make it impossible to do so. After all, a country is made up of people, and loving and serving a country is not so different from loving and serving its people. And, certainly, you might say we should volunteer in our communities, or we should step up for military service. But the demands of love either weigh on us, or they don’t, even if we volunteer at home or drive ambulances abroad or bring gifts to ailing soldiers anyway. The dialogue goes on:
“‘I don’t love.’
“‘You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.’
“‘I’m happy. I’ve always been happy.’
“‘It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it.’”
Farewell,
Suzanna