The tradition of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in American schools is a practice that has been both revered and contested throughout its history. Instituted in the late 19th century, the Pledge was originally a manifestation of patriotic sentiment and a means to instill a sense of national unity among young Americans. However, when critically examining this practice, particularly through a comparative lens with historical European nationalism, one finds compelling reasons to question its continued relevance and potential implications.
The Pledge of Allegiance, in its essence, requires students to affirm their loyalty to the nation. This act of collective assertion within a scholastic institution raises the magnitude of the increase in individual freedom and the possibility that this may actually further, rather than broaden, a conformist and uncritical understanding of patriotism. This should call to mind the setting of Europe some 80 years back, especially the '30s and '40s, with totalitarian regimes on their rise; these also used national pledges, anthems, and other forms of state symbolism in fostering a monolithic sense of national identity and loyalty.
These regimes, most of all—Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy—practiced the methods for unification but also for manipulation, indoctrination, and silencing of any form of dissent in ways that lead to catastrophic consequences, including war and genocide. While one should not place the Pledge of Allegiance on par with the likes of these dictatorial regimes' methods for indoctrination through extreme nationalism, such a comparison does still pose quite pressing questions regarding the validity of compulsory pledges in the most democratic of settings. The more central question, therefore, is the limit to which it is possible to balance between nurturing a sense of national oneness with respect to individual autonomy and his/her right to disagree.
The multicultural and pluralistic societal setup of the United States guarantees freedom of thought and expression. If freedom of thought and expression is integral, collective recitations are mandatory and therefore run against the very spirit of individual freedom and critical thinking around which the core of educative values lies. Further, the modifications made to the original text of the pledge underline that the words "under God," which were added in 1954, were added during the Cold War. It was used in this case to underline unity but also extended to identify the ideological border, as in, enforcing monolithic interpretation of American identity.
The inclusion itself has instigated the debates on religious freedom and separation of church from the state, showing just how the Pledge could become an avenue for divisive rather than unifying sentiments. Its critics point out that education is supposed to enable students to become thinking patriots, conscious and questioning of their nation's histories and values rather than encouraging informed and questioning patriotism.
There is an issue in that the ritual of the Pledge, at least where participation is effectively required, does not elicit such critically active but rather taken-for-granted patriotism. In a nutshell, even as the Pledge of Allegiance in schools purportedly serves the good intention of inspiring national unity and patriotic sentiment, its practice may still serve as a deserving object for democratic critical scrutiny against the tapestry of history.
The parallels to Europe 80 years ago are an alarm about how much danger these enforced nationalistic rituals can bring. And the further America grows and develops as a pluralistic democratic society, the more it becomes necessary for traditions such as the Pledge of Allegiance to be critically reflected upon in relation to whether it adequately services the pluralist and critical spirit of education that prepares students to be patriots, but first prepares them to be thoughtful and critically informed citizens.