"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The Pledge of Allegiance as read above is the most current pledge students in public schools, fans of sports games, and political events say when facing a flag with their hand on their heart. SADLY, I actually had to look up the correct words to the pledge and after looking them up on a random site, I found a whole new approach to this blog.
When I was younger, from about kindergarten through 5th grade, I always believed that it said "one nation, under God, INVISIBLE, with liberty and justice for all." So this completely made sense to me, because God is invisible to us (us believers anyways). I just assumed it was going on about what God was. For this example, if invisible was the word instead of indivisible, or unable to divide, then the meaning would change for students to a more religious meaning.
As well as, to go off on this that because God is in the Pledge of Allegiance the saying already has a religious feel to it. I would not be surprised that if in a few generations from mine that the Pledge is changed yet again, due to the rapid revolution of the evolution theory, causing less people to be strong believers in Christianity.
To continue on this in http://www.oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pledge.htm webpage, it has a article called The Pledge of Allegiance-A Short History. This is where I got the Pledge from and then I began to read the article...it explained interesting aspects that totally relate to Crain explanation of how one word can change an entire meaning of something, such as A is for apple not for Abraham (more christianic value) - yes I think I just made up the word Christianic... anyways...
In this article it speaks about how the Pledge has changed throughout the years. The original Pledge was created by Francis Bellamy. It was " I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. He was a major activist for equality but was afraid that putting equality into the Pledge would cause superintendents in education to not consider it during the flag raising ceremony and flag salute because women were not considered equal, nor were Africa-Americans. (I also believe any ethnicity was not considered equal to Caucasian correct?). If equality was in the pledge of allegiance this might have molded our childrens minds into believing that everyone should be equal...this would have made a huge step into making everyone have equal rights if it had occurred so early back in 1892.
So kind of like how Crain speaks about the Tom Thumb's Play-Book about how we need to teach children their letters as soon as they can speak to basically mold their minds into learning our language, the Pledge is like molding the children to understand the fundamental foundation our country believes in.. So children learn I pledge allegiance to the flag (meaning the flag must be important to our country), of the United States of America (the country they live in) and to the Republic for which it stands (Who the flag is for ), one nation (us), under God (he must be the superior one), Indivisible (The US is unstoppable), with liberty and justice for all (everyone should be nice and fair to everyone.) Just with that context alone it shows that words are key to anyone.
Some pro-life advocates recite the pledge the same except add, born and unborn to the end of the pledge while some liberals add with equality to between indivisible and liberty. Both of these changes could complete alter what goes on in my head. While equality would not alter in my head as much because we are equal now in the United States (technically), the born and unborn part would change my mind if it had been embedded at such a young age as well as for me to continuously say it for 180 days for 13 years of my life...while i am pro-choice I believe that if I had been put into this situation it might have changed my thoughts.
I also used the pledge of allegiance for this assignment, but I argued about changing the word "flag". I never thought about adding things to the pledge to change American values. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThere are some good points here, although there are several logical fallacies that make the argument difficult to follow in several areas. Also, point of fact, indivisible doesn't mean unstoppable. It means not able to be divided; in the context of the pledge it means the country, while made of states, is still a collective.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a very solid idea, that the Pledge of Allegiance is a sort of a representation for what our country means, at least in the eyes of the schoolchildren that have to recited it every day. The individual words have meanings to us, and that changing any of them can give the entire pledge a new set of meanings.
ReplyDeleteAs many schoolchildren that have to recite the pledge are "soft," impressionable, and in need of acculturation , the pledge becomes a powerful tool to do these things. It's distinct order, much like the alphabet, instills a sense of discipline and order to our society for these children, least of all because we have to do it at a certain time every day. I can see how any changes in certain words could completely redefine the meaning of it to any given child.