Why are Masons Patriots?
by Consuegra Arquiciega
This essay, at once philosophical, anthropological, and profoundly humanistic, explores the complex relationship between Freemasonry and patriotism from a critical yet constructive perspective. Starting with the contrast between collective suffering and its ritualization within the Masonic framework, Consuegra Arquiciega argues that the lodge is not merely a symbolic refuge but an active school of compassion, where mourning becomes ethics and ritual transforms society.
The text, with erudition and sensitivity, navigates the historical paradoxes of the institution: its universalist discourse in contrast to its past exclusions; its ideal fraternity against social and gender barriers; its cosmopolitanism against the rise of modern nationalisms. With the conceptual support of authors such as Schopenhauer, Kant, Clifford Geertz, and Lévi-Strauss, the author traces a moral genealogy of the Mason as a subject who transcends borders without negating them, who loves his homeland not for its ethnic myths, but for its just institutions.
In times of dehumanizing globalization and identity reactions, the essay posits that true Masonic patriotism is not tribal or exclusionary but enlightened: it does not deny homelands but subordinates them to a universal ethic. In the words of José Martí, "Homeland is humanity."
The work closes with a fervent invitation to good brothers to, without rest or pause, return to the path of the stone and actively work for human dignity. For, as Schopenhauer reminds us and the author reiterates, "compassion is the foundation of all morality," and Freemasonry, when faithful to its myth, is that compassion made into ritual, fraternity, and action.
