Re:Remember them more honestly
by Normal_gaussian on Saturday November 30, 2019 @01:25AM
(#21668867)
A small point of interest:
The author takes issue with a line in the song/poem "I vow to thee my country". The line is "the love that asks no questions".
Firstly, I confess to this being one of my favourite - if not my favourite - poems. And in that I must confess to have a different take on it; what the lyrics mean to me if you will.
I take a non-religious, but not strictly incompatible, reading. One where "another country" is an ideal to strive for.
I read the "the love that asks no questions" to be the unconditional love of a person for their country, and not an unconditional acceptance of their governement or a surrendering of will. Whether this is the original intention I do not know or really care.
It is in that line that these lyrics give me great strength. In a career where I can easily emigrate, having few living ties, I could very easily blame the country for all that I see as wrong and leave it.
But that of course doesn't help anyone but me - and likely only myself in the short term. My love for my country shouldn't be strictly conditional on the state those I disagree with have put it in. I have to recognise I am of my country. I have to recognise that it is my responsibility.
The author takes issue with a line in the song/poem "I vow to thee my country". The line is "the love that asks no questions".
Firstly, I confess to this being one of my favourite - if not my favourite - poems. And in that I must confess to have a different take on it; what the lyrics mean to me if you will.
I take a non-religious, but not strictly incompatible, reading. One where "another country" is an ideal to strive for.
I read the "the love that asks no questions" to be the unconditional love of a person for their country, and not an unconditional acceptance of their governement or a surrendering of will. Whether this is the original intention I do not know or really care.
It is in that line that these lyrics give me great strength. In a career where I can easily emigrate, having few living ties, I could very easily blame the country for all that I see as wrong and leave it.
But that of course doesn't help anyone but me - and likely only myself in the short term. My love for my country shouldn't be strictly conditional on the state those I disagree with have put it in. I have to recognise I am of my country. I have to recognise that it is my responsibility.