An educational note, giving you the real meaning of an oft-quoted remark of Dr. Johnson's, from Robert Conquest's new book, The Dragons of Expectation:
An antipatriotic strain can certainly be noted in one variety of liberalism. Its most frequent symptom is the use of Dr. Johnson's remark "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" — commonly employed, even now, as a sort of put-down by critics of the patriotic.
How anyone could imagine that Johnson was against patriotism in its modern sense is most peculiar. If anything, he was almost a chauvinist. In controversy, his main victims were Whigs, about whom he made many offensive remarks. . . .
The word "patriotism" for Johnson meant, of course, in its then usage, adherence to the most ostentatious Whiggism, what would now be called "leftism."
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