This is exactly what the French have done, and France is a good instance of the working paradox.

Nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary; and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping.

The more transcendental is your patriotism, the more practical are your politics.
Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case of women; and their strange and strong loyalty.

Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything.

They can hardly have known any women.