Patriotism & Government suffers, through no fault of its own, of being a product of its time. Its references to Christianity being the pinnacle of human morality has been proven wrong again and again (which Tolstoy alludes to being a possibility through the incorporation of a quote from an American source).

Beyond that, Tolstoy frequently groups taxation and the press (and even teachers) in with the evils of the state. This is a problem because these ideas have been so twisted and are used so pervasively by the insidious nationalist forces of today that the text runs the risk of being perverted into something it is not, namely an individualist, religiously motivated social-Darwinian pillar, a call to eliminate 'other' states while enabling the 'right' one. No statist patriot today likes taxation or journalists or professors; quite the opposite, they are their strongest opposers. Nor do they uphold Christianity as a peaceful, non-statist force; they use it as an exclusionary club to weed out patriots from non-patriots. Not only that, the taxation, press and educators of today are hardly exclusively statist enforcers.

Tolstoy is actually calling for internationalism, unity of people the world over, and makes some remarkably prescient observations (the virtues of feminism and vegetarianism come to mind) while even alluding to elements of intersectionality, but frequently falls back on Christianity to justify his positions. This makes this text difficult for young people without their first having had lots of time devoted to pre-teaching serious critical thinking and close reading skills in regard to such specific aspects of it.

Further, while very possibly an effect of translation, his frequent invocation of 'evil' is particularly jarring. Scholars today are very wary of applying moral certitudes to complex social structures, and rightfully so. In fact, his use of the word makes it very easy to twist the text into a moralistic pretext for violence, the very thing he hopes to eradicate, for why should something 'evil' be allowed to exist for even another moment?

Anyway, this has been rambly. Taxation is not evil. Yes, much of one's taxes being given to the military-industrial complex is wildly dangerous and violent and should be opposed, but a refusal to pay for public schooling, green public works and healthcare is not something to be praised. This distinction is one that needs to be made but unfortunately isn't in Patriotism & Government (because, of course, in the era in which it was written, these ideas did not yet exist).

Very much want to rate this higher, namely because I agree that patriotism is a great danger in the world, but the text's easy opportunity for being twisted into something it isn't and thus its limited usefulness in moving the progressive conversation further forward without extreme attention to context makes me wary to do so. ( )