It is not uncommon to hear people confuse patriotism with jingoism. So let's spend a few moments this Fourth of July reflecting on the difference.
Jingoism is well described by Robert Hendrickson as " bellicose chauvinism." But given the general level of culture, I am afraid I can't leave it at that, but must go on to explain 'chauvinism' and 'bellicose.' Chauvinism has nothing to do with sex or race. I have no objection to the phrases 'male chauvinism' or 'white chavinism,' the latter a term widely used in the 1950s in Communist Party USA circles; but the qualifiers are essential. Chauvinism, named after Nicholas Chauvin of Rochefort, an officer under Napoleon, is excessive nationalism.
'Bellicose' from the Latin word for war (bellum, belli) means warlike. So we get 'warlike excessive nationalism' as the definiens of 'jingoism.'
According to Henrickson, the term itself originated from a refrain from the British music hall song "The Great MacDermott" (1878) urging Great Britain to fight the Russians and prevent them from taking Constantinople:
We don't want to fight, yet by Jingo if we do we've got the ships, we've got the men, and the money, too.
'By Jingo,' in turn, is a euphemism for 'by Jesus' that dates back to the later 17th century. (QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 2nd ed. p. 395)
So much for 'jingoism.' I think we are all going to agree that it is not a good thing.
Patriotism, however, is a good thing, a virtue. Like any virtue it is a means between two extremes. In this case, one of the extremes is excessive love of one's country, while the other is a deficiency of love for one's country. The patriot's love of his country is ordinate, within bounds. As Robert Koons points out, the patriot is neither a jingoist nor a neutralist. Both are anti-patriots. I would add that to confuse a patriot with a jingoist is like confusing a dissenter with a traitor. No doubt sometimes a jingoist or chauvinist will hide beneath the mantle of patriotism, but just as often a traitor will hide beneath the mantle of dissent.
The patriot is also not a xenophobe since ordinate love of one's country does not entail hattred or fear of other countries and their inhabitants.
Is patriotism, defined as the ordinate love of, and loyalty to, one's country justified? Although it does not entail xenophobia, it does imply a certain partiality for one's own country precisely because it is one's own. Is this partiality toward one's own country justifiable?
According to Koons, it is justifiable because
As Socrates explains in Plato’s Crito, our country and its laws have overseen our nurturance, our education, and the forming of our characters. The political community (the polis or state) is a natural institution, as necessary for the fulfillment of human nature as is the family or the workplace. Moreover, we owe a debt of honor to our forebears, to fellow countrymen in generations past who worked and ventured, who built for us a legacy of justice, peace and prosperity. Many of our fellow Americans risked their lives to defend and secure the many blessings that we enjoy today, and many, thousands and hundreds of thousands, made the supreme sacrifice for our sake, in Valley Forge, on Iwo Jima, on the shores of Normandy, and many other places too numerous to mention. Who can contemplate these facts without a keen sense of our own responsibility to secure the same blessings for our posterity? To deny the claims of patriotic duty would be a shameful act of ingratitude and impiety.
The sentence I italicized is in need of examination and support, a difficult task best postponed.