From a good profile of actress Claire Danes, currently gripping segments of the intelligentsia/viewing public (including me) with her role in TV drama Homeland, this excellent distinction.
“The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11,” she says. She was living in Sydney at the time. “I couldn’t have been farther away, physically, from the event, but I grew up in downtown New York, not even a mile away from the towers. One of my friends wanted to have a debate about it and when she was pressing me to take an intellectual position, I just kind of barked: ‘my house is on fire!’ That’s how it felt; it just felt personal and visceral. Growing up in New York with artist parents – a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo – I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake.”
Claire Danes on spies, motherhood and therapy (via NZ Herald).
