I’ve been conducting a poll, gauging the level of pride in America amongst the students here on campus on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest level of pride in our nation.

The results were surprisingly decent. I honestly expected a much more dismal display of a lack of pride and was somewhat pleased with the love for America demonstrated by some of the students here on campus, especially that of one particular freshman, who will remain nameless.

When asked to place his level of pride in America on a scale of 1 to 10, this frosh quickly responded with resolute assurance, “11.”

The next day, as I was conducting the survey in the common room of my floor in Clark Hall, that frosh was appalled at the uncertainty and hesitation of the other students responding to the survey.

After a somewhat contentious back-and-forth discussion amongst the three or four students debating what the question meant, its subjectivity, the nature of national pride and appreciation of other countries and other forms of government, the young patriot blurted out a beauty of a line, amazing both for its sincerity and condemning nature:

“The answer to the question is that you shouldn’t even have to think about it.”

You might at first conclude that his statement was born of blind patriotism, or worse yet, ignorance. I assure you, however, that this is a bright guy with the mental faculty of an ideal Wesleyan student, an intelligent and independent thinker unafraid to go against the grain. And yes, he is a proud Republican. And no, there’s nothing wrong with that.

If there’s anything I respect about the GOP—and there’s a good deal, despite my generally leftist sensibility and upbringing in a working-class community—it is the general sense of American pride members of the party are unashamed to make known to other Americans and to the rest of the world. The passionate Clark freshman, along with many Republicans, has absolutely no qualms about claiming the US of A is the best damn country in the world.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel as if that attitude has lost favor and is somehow considered ludicrous or silly or…ignorant. Gasp! That’s the new curse word, the insult levied willy-nilly used these days toward anyone of differing opinion. I find that majority always seems to seek to shush minority opinion, even when that majority is left-leaning and supposedly “open-minded.”

In any case, the point I’m making is that our level of national pride is a joke. After averaging the 57 survey responses, the average level of pride came out to be a lukewarm 6.14. It’s better than what I expected from this intellectual college community where much value is placed on questioning norms and conventions, including traditional loyalties. Nonetheless, a 6.14 is not indicative of a strong sense of pride.

I know pride when I see it. Just talk to my Cuban grandmother, who, when she was not yet twenty years old, came all alone and with next to no money to this country in the early 1940s, right before Fidel Castro came to power back in Cuba. She came in pursuit of the American Dream, and ultimately she achieved it, working hard at various jobs, marrying my grandfather, and starting a family. And she did it all by pulling herself up by her own bootstraps with the freedom and opportunity this wonderful country afforded her. Do not dare tell her otherwise. You would be challenging the embodiment of the fervent national pride of a bygone generation. You’d also experience the wrath of a sandal-wielding Hispanic-American grandma, but that is an aside.

One of the students who responded to the survey via Facebook posted a link to a famous scene from the TV series “The Newsroom” in which a panelist goes on a rant about how America is not the greatest country in the world anymore, much to the shock of everyone in the audience. He brings up alarmingly valid points, citing various statistics regarding America’s relative rank in relation to other countries in various areas from education to health. It is all very dramatic and such, but the scene is indicative of a real phenomenon: educated citizens losing faith in our nation and feeling a certain embarrassment in any display of national pride.

Perusing the Internet, one will find many memes, tweets, and articles that satirize southern and/or Republican pride in “’Murica.” National pride has literally become a joke in our country. The predominant, unspoken consensus is that fervently loving America is a tell-tale sign of ignorance and/or bigotry. Essentially, you have to be stupid to love America.

In conducting this unofficial survey, an interesting dichotomy between pride and loyalty became apparent. One student I surveyed, Cindy, was the first to explicitly bring up this dynamic. She expressed that she felt “indebted” to the United States for the opportunities available here that she would not have had in the country of her parents, Guatemala. On the other hand she felt dismayed with certain policies of the current government, especially in foreign policy.

Recognizing that Cindy is not alone in her sentiments, it is fair to say that many Americans, while feeling some minimal sense of loyalty to the country, suffer a profound disillusionment and subsequent lack of pride in our government and its role in domestic, and most especially, global societal affairs. Though the lack of pride in America and its governmental apparatus is distinguishable from the sense of loyalty to the nation, it is evident that pride and loyalty are not entirely separable. They are helplessly entangled with one another. The lack of national pride inevitably correlates with a lack of loyalty. I can readily say that I myself have been guilty of a lack of American loyalty, and while it may seem trivial, my indiscretion is a common one and points to a larger phenomenon.

Young soccer fans across the country choose to root for other nations instead of the United States during the World Cup. (I personally root big time for Spain, the country of my grandparents.) It may seem incredibly trivial, but it is part of a larger dearth of national pride under which lies two fundamental problems: 1) a crisis of identity as brought about by increased globalization, most recently through the emergence of social media, and 2) a disillusionment with current governmental and political affairs.

The first dynamic is a fascinating one that applies not simply to the United States but to nations around the globe. It used to be that one identified strongly with his or her immediate community, and cultural and national displacement of individuals was a cause of geographical displacement. It is no longer so simple. Through the magic of the Internet, we are connected beyond borders in an increasingly interactive way that is tearing apart our cultural, national, and regional identities at the seams. How American does the kid who spends most of his free time on the Internet learning about different people from around the world and all sorts of nationally unaffiliated entities, companies, and institutions, not to mention foreign porn flicks, really feel? How could he develop much of a sense of pride with limited engagement in community affairs and such a vivid exposure to life across the continents?

Aside from this emerging identity crisis of the individual and his displacement as a result of technology, especially the Internet and social media, another factor contributes to the lack of national pride in America. Painfully ironic and unavoidably true, the biggest cause for the low national self-esteem is education.

Just tonight I was discussing the survey question with a few kids in my hall. One of them, Aidan, ranked his level of American pride at a five. When asked why, he mentioned how he had been discussing flaws of democracy in his government class and how dismaying and “depressing” the conversation was for him. It seems the more a person knows about the structure of American government and the more informed they are of its current policies and how they compare to that of other nations, the less prideful they become in the United States.

Aidan’s testimonial is a sad commentary on the present state of our nation. We are so divided that management of our nation is forever a point of contention and controversy. Loyalties have increasingly been placed in party, faction, and class, and it seems as if Rome is falling apart, crumbling before our very eyes. Amidst this gloom and doom, all the predictions of the fall of an empire and such, I ask, is it too much to take up pride in our foundational principles and values and come together to restore our nation? I guess what I’ve been driving at here is a plea to do just that. C’mon, ’Murica. Let us remember who we are, a nation of ideals, not a homogenous cultural group or a couple of competing political factions, but rather a place for anyone who believes in the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Regardless of what happens in Syria, let us be proud and loyal to our country, where we have the liberty to feel and express otherwise. Long live the American Revolution!