From the Earth to the Moon Patriotism Quotes

Oh, goodness. The men of the Gun Club—true patriots at heart—wish for war because they know that war strengthens the national identity. Throughout human history, this emphasis on national identity has been a frequent cause of conflict.

The Gun Club sees their moon mission as a form of colonial expansion. Yes, it's certainly true that they're motivated by science as well, but that's clearly not the full picture. As we'll come to see, this nationalistic motivation ends up shaping many of their decisions.

In the novel, Americans are portrayed as rather self-serious about their national pride. Maston's often silly freak-outs are the perfect embodiment of this mentality.

The Gun Club's mission is met by a rabid patriotic fervor. This is actually one of the more positive examples of patriotism in the novel—here it's used to unite people rather than divide them. In fact, this scene is notable because it sees members of different ethnic groups uniting as one, and you don't get more American than that.

Although the whole world follows the project with eager interest, no one is as invested in it (both literally and metaphorically) as the American people. And to think that this is coming less than a decade after the Civil War.

This is where things start to get a nasty—and hilarious. Is there anything funnier than the image of a bunch of Americans losing their minds over the title of a Shakespeare play? Regardless, this is our first sign that patriotism has a dark underbelly, causing regular folks to do patently insane things out of a misguided sense of national pride.

No one is more patriotic than Maston. Here, he opposes using a piece of technology simply because no American contributed to its invention. You don't get much sillier than that—it would be like refusing to listen to Drake because you only like American rap.

The Gun Club wants to ensure that America, and America alone, gets the credit for the moon mission. It's hard to blame them for this, but they seem to have forgotten about the project's significant international investment.

At least Maston is aware of his patriotic double-standard. To be honest, we doubt he's ever left the country, but that doesn't stop him from claiming America's obvious superiority. Even his choice of "Greece" as the point of comparison is telling—much of American civil society is, to an extent, modeled after Greek systems. Oops.

The patriotic pride of the crowd is almost louder than the cannon itself. In the end, you simply have to take for patriotism for what it is—a powerful emotion with plenty of positive and negative effects. Sometimes it helps people; sometimes it hurts them. No matter what happens, however, it's always useful to take a step back and look at the real motivations behind these feelings.