Confucianism pushes against nationalism of any sort because it defines our moral selves in terms of how well we cultivate and preserve our closest loving relationships.  If there is a conflict of obligations between family (or most immediate social network) and nation or state, Confucianism would tell us that we must first fulfill our duty to family.  We can, certainly, take up larger public responsibilities, but they should not contradict or weaken our daily duties to those closest to us.

     The brother of Pat Tillman, the US professional football player turned soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, Kevin Tillman, has run up against a conflict between his duty to speak the truth about his dead brother and his responsibilities as a former US Army Ranger. He has generally kept his own counsel regarding his brother’s terrible death.  But now he is speaking out:

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people
and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage,
virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground. 

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are
allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

….

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

 Kevin Tillman took up his national obligation and he went to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.  No one can say he has shirked his public duty (though his emergent political enemies may now try).  But we must also respect his personal duty to force us to remember his brother’s sacrifice, and the sad political truths that follow from it.  He is a loyal brother and that loyalty is an enactment of his moral self.