Not so long ago, I tuned into a radio talk show

At one point, during this debate, a senior officer of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) declared, “I am more patriotic than all of you (in the studio) because I risked my life for the country by going to the bush.”

Naturally, the UPDF officer’s implied view that the bush is an incubator for patriotism instead of the perfect setting for the Animal Kingdom channel is not something that should detain us here.

Instead, let us concern ourselves with the meaning of “patriotism” and interrogate its continued purchase in the marketplace of ideas.

Briefly, patriotism is a feeling of love for one’s country. This love is expressed through an attachment and commitment to the same.

So, off the bat, it is practically impossible to measure who is indwelt with more patriotism from one person to the next.

For we all express our attachment and commitment to the nation in different ways. And so, it is the height of arrogance to think patriotism can be taught, as this implies that the way one person expresses their patriotism is superior to the way another expresses theirs.

Patriotism cannot be taught, but it can be learnt.

I will explain this paradox by saying that you cannot be made to love (or made patriotic) but you can grow to love and such growth comes with learning.

Getting to the root of this issue, patriotism, as a political sentiment, was initially recorded in Roman antiquity as patria or loyalty to ‘a’ political conception of the republic.

I highlight the letter ‘a’ as a determiner of how diverse the conception of any republic is. So, nobody has a monopoly on what sort of republic we should live in.

Again, patriotism is often associated with the love of law and common liberty pursuant to the common good and the duty to behave justly toward one’s country.

This classical Roman meaning of patria reflects the continued search for liberty. This search does not suppose liberty is lost but instead assumes it must be rediscovered continually in order for it to jibe with evolving circumstances.

Circumstances which are in constant danger of devolving and must be safeguarded by a renewable civic spirit.

The Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli believed that the search for liberty would ultimately unite the private interests of the individual with the public interest of society. This would subsequently help humankind resist corruption and tyranny

Love of one’s country is thus indicative of the love of one’s fellow beings and this love leads to the willingness to sacrifice one’s own good—including one’s life—for the protection of common liberty.

I suspect that this was the train of thought chugging through the UPDF officer’s mind, but he chose to bastardize it with Tarzan-like chest thumping.

That said, allow me to about-face by tying up intellectual loose ends on the subject of patriotism and thereby attempting the impossible: measuring patriotism.

Hence, I will go out on a limb to state that patriotism can best be measured by how others love the way you love your country.

In this sense, patriotism is an example.

So, if the example of your love for your country inspires others towards a similar love, then you are patriotic indeed.

Intellectually speaking, that UPDF officer would only have convinced us of his patriotism if his patriotism was able to inspire our own, and thereby galvanize us, as a people, into becoming one equal temper of patriotic hearts.