Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Patriotic symbols & pageantry are from a time gone by, naturally appealing to conservatives, but in a sophisticated and interconnected world they seem quaint and anachronistic; in fact, patriotism itself is being challenged. Flags are complex symbols, and to most children, saying the Pledge of Allegiance is little more than chanting, militaristic even, especially when accompanied by a gesture of some kind: salute or hand-over-heart. It's obviously a form of brainwashing, one we as a unified nation were willing, even eager, to endue, but what real purpose does it serve other than conditioning citizens to forced compliance by the State.

Even discussing the Pledge of Allegiance is a contentious topic, rife for demagoguery from The Right. In the past, chanting the pledge before school started was mainstream but public sentiment is beginning to turn against it, primarily fueled by the grievance culture that condemns America's past, including the sentimentality expressed in the pledge: flag, god, liberty. What the pledge did was indoctrinate these concepts into the whole populace so that everyone understood what was important in America, but there is a cultural war going on where those things are now associated with only one side. Pledging as a way to control the narrative has lost its effectiveness.