A critical perspective of patriotism

As an attempt to investigate attitudes and beliefs held presently by American youths, the following exploratory study of patriotism presents a variant of the original Berkeley group's analysis presented in their classic book The Authoritarian Personality (1950). By reconstructing the Berkeley group's theoretical model, their concept of "pseudopatriotism" was examined as an agent of false consciousness. Within the framework of critical theory, it was discovered that this type of patriotism relates positively to individuals' lack of perception of their alienated state in society. As hypothesized in the original study by the Berkeley group, authoritarianism was found to have a significant positive relationship to patriotism. In contrast, the concept of feminism was discovered to relate negatively to patriotism, indirectly, through its direct relationship with the variable of alienation. The findings of this investigation were obtained by surveying undergraduate students (N=405) at Ball State University.Department of SociologyThesis (M.A.