As I reviewed
all the snippets collected for this week's episode, listening to a dozen or so
graduation addresses by various celebrities, scholars, athletes, and titans of
industry was a must. Yes, I even listened to that douche bag Butker again, just
so I could be sure that he really was an asshat exercising his right of free
speech. My position on that whack-a-doodle has not changed. But I also heard a
whole lotta serious talks by serious people attempting to impart their
experience and knowledge to the emerging adult population of this country.
Overall, not a bad thing.
However, all other speeches faded into intellectual obscurity as I listened to documentarian (and so much more) Ken Burns talk to the graduating class of Brandeis University. I cannot urge you enough to listen to the full 21 minutes of his speech. Here it is in its entirety:
And here is the link to the transcript link to the transcript. You can read it, but hearing him is so much better.
Early on, he reminds his audience of a speech given by a young Abraham Lincoln:
In January of 1838, shortly before his 29th birthday, a tall, thin lawyer prone to bouts of debilitating depression addressed the young men's lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?" He asked his audience, "Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the earth and crush us at a blow?" Then he answered his own question. "Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide."
It's amazing to think that even 186 years ago, a guy was prescient enough to warn his audience that we are each responsible for what happens in and to this nation. If we do not take our power as citizens with forethought and deliberation, We, the People own the crumbling of our democratic republic. Would We, the People take a guy that young seriously today? Probably not...much to our detriment.
One of the most profound and powerful parts of Burns' address was a quote from James Baldwin:
In a filmed interview I conducted with the writer James Baldwin, more than 40 years ago, he said, "No one was ever born who agreed to be a slave, who accepted it. That is, slavery is a condition imposed from without. Of course, the moment I say that," Baldwin continued, "I realize that multitudes and multitudes of people for various reasons of their own enslave themselves every hour of every day to this or that doctrine, this or that delusion of safety, this or that lie. Anti-Semites, for example," he went on, "are slaves to a delusion. People who hate Negroes are slaves. People who love money are slaves. We are living in a universe really of willing slaves, which makes the concept of liberty and the concept of freedom so dangerous," he finished. Baldwin is making a profoundly psychological and even spiritual statement, not just a political or racial or social one. He knew, just as Lincoln knew, that the enemy is often us. We continue to shackle ourselves with chains we mistakenly think is freedom.
We are living in a universe really of willing slaves, which makes the concept of liberty and the concept of freedom so dangerous. When Burns quoted Baldwin, I had to stop the video, rewind, and listen again.
We, the People, are an entrenched people. More and more, we are a house divided by our own recalcitrant opinions and so buried in the quicksand of our prejudices that we can see no merit whatsoever beyond what we want to believe. And within that entrenchment, is the surrender to the delusion that the lies, the innuendo, and the crimes blatantly committed are somehow okay. Burns refers to the presumptive Republican nominee as "the opioid of all opioids." To continue down the path of the nominee and his supporters is dangerous to the principles the Founding Fathers (yeah, they were men) set forth in the Constitution itself. We, the People don't get to point a finger at anyone but ourselves for the choices we make.
At this point in our existence as a nation, we are so polarized that the middle ground on which we once met has almost completely disappeared. The House of Representatives is a case study on how to destroy consensus as the ultra-right and the ultra-left battle for position, leaving those who would seek cooperation and bipartisanship holding the bag for progress not made. Officials elected to office are supposed to be servants of We, the People. They do not have the mandate to ignore the will of their constituency while applying their personal paternalistic opinions on an entire country. That said, I seem to be in the minority when I say things like: you may be a XXXX or a YYYY, but once you're seated in Congress, you are representing our entire district/state. You are charged to represent all of us. The good of the people is disregarded every time they play chicken with the budget or the office of Speaker of the House. Their actions are no longer about what is good for America, only about what is good for their own personal gain.
Ken Burns observed:
There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route.
I cannot disagree with him. At the same time, the events of this spring demonstrate they have not progressed away from polarization. That, gentle readers, is terrifying.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
 |
| Yael Dayan 1939-2024 |
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Stop and smell the lilacs...especially if you're in Minnesota.
Once again, you widen my world with your research and calls to listen. I thank you sincerely for the link to Ken Burns' speech. So impressive, articulate and perceptive is this historian.
ReplyDelete