Deep into his speech Wednesday night, President Barack Obama spoke of “the character of our country,” a phrase he took from the deathbed letter of Sen. Ted Kennedy. The president – the president! – described the great tug-of-war in the hearts of all Americans. This is what he said.
One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and, yes, sometimes angry debate. That’s our history.
And:
[Our] large-heartedness — that concern and regard for the plight of others…It, too, is part of the American character — our ability to stand in other people’s shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play…
How do we square the blessed possibilities of individual freedom with the soul-shaping joys and heartaches of our lives with others? How do we light out for the territories alone and stay in our lovers’ beds?
Is it true what the poets and the philosophers say? That freedom is a plural term? That no one is free when another is in chains? That “territories” is a term about human relationships of many kinds, not just a topographic description?
The rub comes often. It comes to our homes, it comes to our politics. It haunts our spousal anxieties over small things (“Pick your socks up off my floor!”) and large (“Back off. I’m claustrophobic.”). It haunts our collective negotiations about national health care policy with fantasies that, though false, are no less frightening to some (“You can’t have my money to pay her doctor bill.”).
I think this dilemma is to democracy like the horizon is to the pioneer. It’s always there, no matter how far we walk. We are lucky to suffer it. When it disappears, freedom goes with it.
Slave masters did their violent best to deprive slaves of the dilemma. The masters tried to strip from their chattel a self that could ponder the social and the individual. Lighting out for the territories was something slaves couldn’t do. The same is true today of the ghettoized and the forgotten. It’s telling, though, that as soon as the real horizon does appear to us as something we can pursue, this aching joy wakes inside us with more force than it does in those who take freedom a little too much for granted.
Didn’t Jefferson wonder at it all? James Madison? Emerson? Thoreau? Margaret Fuller? Abraham Lincoln? Franklin Roosevelt? Martin Luther King, Jr.? June Jordan, fearless essayist, activist and professor, wrote:
Demos, as in democratic, as in a democratic state, means people, not person. A democratic nation of persons, of individuals, is an impossibility, and a fratricidal goal. Each American one of us must consciously choose to become a willing and outspoken part of the people who, together, will determine our individual chances for happiness, and justice.
On her retreat to the Southern woods, Jordan was raped by a stranger. With a painful creative genius of a saint, Jordan draws a parallel between her self-imposed isolation from others and the brutal violation of her own individuality. And so, she contests the popular, if in many ways misunderstood, view of Thoreau’s Walden.
But someone raped me in the middle of my rented, pseudo-Walden Pond. Someone had insinuated himself into that awkward, tiny shelter of my thoughts and dreams. He had dealt with me as egotistically as, in another way, I had postponed dealing with anyone besides myself. He had overpowered the supposed protection of my privacy, he had violated the boundaries of my single self. He had acted as though nothing mattered so much as his certainly brute impulse. And was that conduct entirely different from my own, supposing that nothing mattered as much as my artistic impulse, the one that ruled my friends and family and my neighbors out of my usual universe?
In a free world, all the doors are open. We enter and we leave. As Genevieve Van Cleve wrote in her tribute to the truth about immigration, "People move."
That a president of the United States would speak publicly and movingly to the democratic dilemma of the self and others is heartening. It speaks to something all Americans know to be true, because all Americans face some version of it every day. It is at the center of our conversation about health care reform. Hell, it is at the center of everything.
Darrell Scott’s song, “The Open Door,” poignantly captures the American spirit of the perpetual immigrant caught between self and others. The narrator is leaving his beloved, a familiar trope in American song and story. He asks her not to grieve, promising to “show you what I found.” But he’s not sure.
And, at the end, Darrell Scott expresses as national anthem what our better selves feel about America, and about one another:
I love you with a fever
I love you with a past
My heart is a keeper
As long as it will last
As long as it will last
I’ll tell you what I know
We walk this road together
And we walk this road alone
.
A related essay can be found at my new politics and culture blog, DogCanyon.org. We have a cast of extraordinary writers, a take that Paul Begala and Arianna Huffington describe as Molly Ivins-like, and a rockin’ good time. The Canyon’s just down aways from the Lake.
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If only that were still true. Much of what we see today is the often willful inability to do just that.
Outstanding post, Glenn. Thank you.
My son was recently accepted into the film school of his dreams.
Also recently, student loan funding for that school went away.
How does he exercise his “individual choice” when he can’t say the magic words that the child of a wealthy family can say? My son can’t say, “Here is the money.”
I think the people in charge like it this way. I think the people in charge are profoundly unAmerican in that they don’t want the common person to have choices. They want the common person to stay in their place, thank you very much.
After all, the good jobs have already been spoken for by such talented up-and-comers as Jenna Bush and Luke Russert.
And don’t forget, “P” is waiting for his closeup.
This is the character of our country. We’ve been emulating pre-1830s England for quite a while with our rotten boroughs. Now, with our “let them eat emergency rooms” charity, we’re slipping into pre-1789 France territory.
I agree. I liken today’s ultrawealthy elite to the court of the Sun King, each with more wealth than Louis himself ever imagined.
You are exactly right, LindaR. There are two things working in the heads of the powerful: one is that the myth of equal opportunity justificies their own theft of money and power; the other is just cynical taking of power and money without regard to the cultural myths that might reinforce it.
By the way friends, we have launched a new blog, DogCanyon.org. Today you can find a post related to this one, a look at the myth of rugged individualism.
DogCanyon’s just down aways from the Lake. We have a crew of extraordinary writers, and we’re gonna do politics and culture. Join us.
Courtiers. Yes.
This post is stunning, Glenn. Stunning as in lyrical, spiritual, pragmatic. It reminds me of a favorite saying: “Step to the edge of all your knowing and then take one step more.” Thank you for this. Truly.
Thanks, Glenn. Lovely and touching post. It seems to me that Americans are lonely in a way they have never been before. Lots more people, lots less feeling of community. We have become sad and tired.
These people shoveled us into the maw of a beefed up Wall Street, and are now preparing to shovel us into the maws of the beefed up health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
When those Democrats all got up and applauded wildly when Obama Hoover sang the praises of the free market in health care as he was pushing legislation that would mandate individuals patronize those corporations, they laid it out for all to see, that we have socialism for the wealthy and elites and nasty, brutish and short capitalist discipline for the rest of us.
The fastest track for the Democrats to permanent minority party status is to alienate the left and right with an individual mandate while alienating the left with no public option. Maybe the Democrats could be excused for blowing a few good hands, but when they trade in a modest full house for a pair of two’s over and over again, they’re willfully throwing the game.
Thanks so much, barbara. I jump into these things and I’m not sure whether I’m going to hit a sharp rock beneath the water.
Yes, but I think we should recognized the loneliness is actually imposed, anxiety, isolation and fear given away for free so we’ll try to buy our way free of them. It can be resisted. We are resisting it. That thought might make the tiredness disappear.
1. Two guys are picking apples. One guy’s basket is full. The other guy still hasn’t put one piece of fruit in his. The first guy shakes his head, climbs down his ladder and goes over to the other guy, says “What’s wrong with you? We both started working at the same time.”
I’ll be one of many Mainers protesting Tony Perkins of the “Family” Research Council today to stand up for equality for all! Can’t wait.
Give ‘em hell, KayinMaine. Hey, do you know where Biscay Pond is? My mother’s family had a little camp there long ago, and we got to visit, and I never wanted to leave.
Good on ya. Whoever said direct actions were out was out of their mind.
Sorta OT – WMNF Tampa celebrated 30 years on the air yesterday. SP Times had a nice writeup and some pix of the early days.
Congrats to WMNF!
This system of giving opportunity to big corporations- an extension of the monarchial system of privilege has been around from the start…the railroads got massive amounts of “Right of Way” (useless to their needs for building or maintaining the railroad) which were sold off as real-estate developments,rented to merchants, had to be purchased by cities, utilities, etc. Southern Pacifics fortune was actually generated from real estate…not carrying freight. The military contractors and agribusiness are well-known corporate recipients of “socialism” [actually with the “revolving door” more resembling the ’socialism’ of Nazi Germany or the KGB-run industries]. Unnecessary or defective weapon systems, perpetually having to be replaced…and huge conglomerates forcing small family farmers off their land.
Even radio and TV received these benefits. Before the FCC got involved hundreds of small, local radio stations were opened, some that interfered with others. This led to the creation of a Federal Regulatory Board that gave wealthy investors the pick of the best channels, as well as opportunities to exclude those pesky small stations from interfering with their “clear channels”. Of course. the deal was that these stations were supposed to be run in the “public interest”, provide local access, a wide range of views and not be political instruments for one faction or party. They were also restrained in size…and newspapers were limited in how many stations they could control in their newspaper markets. Both the FCC and the media have violated their promises to the people…they stole those channels from the public and small entrepreneurs. Now we have Father Coughlin’s on every channel – all day and night…without enforcement of a fairness doctrine. The right-wing an the corporate thieves scream “censorship”…but they stole those channels from others with gov’t help…and broke their implicit moral contract when they became profit making propagandists.
One problem with the U.S. is they adhere to their official myths as tenaciously as Romans held on to their sacred myths.
Hi peeps! Sorry. I was just working on my protest signs. Here they are if you’re interested:
http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/…..-marriage/
I’m leaving now! Gonna go shout down the Haters! LOL :-)
Myths are tenacious things. I have my own. But it sure would be grand if the destructive ones would dissolve.
Whoever believes that one person CANNOT make a difference has never spent the night alone,in a tent, with a mosquito….*G*
There is no individual choice, no freedom, except power. Power opens up the way and the doors, nothing else does. That’s what “justice” really is, leveling the power playing field so that the poor can go toe-to-toe with the rich.
I am in eternal doubt whenever somebody says that some factor of life is always in tension. I doubt that. Usually, there really is only one answer to a question. There is an end result. Saying there is tension just means that people have yet to face up to reality- the reality of power.
We must level the playing field. Only when all can be powerful- can face each other as equals- will everyone be free.
That’s freedom.
Or ever paid attention to the lives of, well, anybody in history. It’s individuals who start things. Religions flow from a single person’s teachings, nations begin because one person wanted it to be there, etc. A single person can change the world, it’s just that most of us- to go back to my point- are not powerful enough to do so, hence the ” I’m just one person!” myth.
Ahem, apparently Joe “You Lie” Wilson understands the POWER of one voice.
Well, Foucalt agrees with you, sort of. I myself am very skeptical about “one answer” thinking. It may be, but from within a human universe it’ll be hard to get an above-it-all perspective from which we can make an absolute judgment.
But, I do agree with you about the ideal of individuals facing one another in equality.
I believe most of the skepticism and distaste for “one answer” thinking comes not from one answer thinking itself, but rather its traditional association with hardliners of all shapes and sizes- not just moral bigots and racists, but firm, “punish the bastards” crime enforcement policies and the blind cruelties such a view takes.
What people forget is that you can have a “one answer” system that gives a one answer in defiance of all this, a moral system I believe we badly need in this country. Half the problem with the progressive moment, I believe, particularly with its older followers, is that there’s a wishy-washy nature to it. I reject that. There is a moral right and a moral wrong. God didn’t put us here to torture the shit out of our fellow man, and he did put us here to stop it.
I think this kind of moral outrage- and really, what’s the fun of being a progressive if it’s not that you can be morally outraged?- would really boost progressive standing in this country. People can inherently sense that there are rights and wrongs in the world. They respond to it.
There’s no contradiction here, really. I suggest we don’t need guidance of a moral absolute to end torture. It takes more courage to live with Keats’ “negative capability,” the ability to live with uncertainty, than it does to choose a moral platform and remain there. But, I agree with you that there’s a difference between morality and moral rigidity. It’s a terrible mistake to be wishy-washy, as you say, because the universe appears to have denied us a perspective that would settle all moral questions finally.
Being humble about one’s moral views doesn’t mean you don’t stand up for them. It doesn’t mean you consider all views more or less viable, since some kill and some stop killing, for instance.
Yes, I believe there are moral rights and moral wrongs. But I also a great moral wrong is to believe in my own righteousness. Neither Gandhi nor MLK made that mistake, and both were able to champion their moral views.
I think it actually takes as much courage to hold a position of moral absoluteness as it does to hold up to uncertainty. Both are terrifying propositions. One has no answers and the other one might hold the wrong answers. Utterly terrifying thoughts. It’s irrelevant which one is “braver”- it’s not a courage contest in here. I can see the benefits of a position of moral uncertainty, it’s just that I prefer moral absolutism.
The main reason I accept the proposition of moral absolution is the fact that I see it played out everyday. There is no situation that, looked at enough, analyzed enough, cannot be reduced down to its truths, and acted upon from there. Most situations are very clear-cut, very dry- it just takes a great deal of knowledge to gather up to that point. Moral absolutism, done correctly, is very slow, but very powerful.
In short? I see that the real world can be handled by moral absolutism. The facts are out there. It’s just a matter of finding them and acting on them.
True, being humble doesn’t affect one’s willingness to fight for one’s moral views, though there are a great deal of people who use humility as a shield to not fight for them, a separate but notable affair.
I highly doubt neither MLK nor Gandhi ever didn’t believe in their own moral righteousness. One can be humble and righteous at the same time, and know it. When Gandhi was being attacked for doing nothing, as MLK was attacked for doing nothing, I’m pretty certain they knew that they were better than the men attacking them. It’s a simple, observable fact.