By MIKE MAGEE
Give thanks for our America, blemishes and all. Ken Burns says as much, making it clear, we are a mess of contradictions, and that is (in part) what makes us a uniquely American.
Consider that in a single week, we have had to endure Trump’s “Things happen” as he defended the Saudi crown prince ordering the Khashoggi killing, while also rejoice in his smack-down THE HILL headlined, “The Epstein files are a turning point in the Trump presidency, but it’s not over yet.” Perhaps Marjorie Taylor Greene said it best for all of us, “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
In the shadow of an autocratic assault unparalleled in our modern history, Americans are searching for a silver lining. Is it helpful to our Democracy to be stress tested and our Constitutional weaknesses revealed so that we might take corrective actions in the future? Should we accept some blame for supporting a culture rich in celebrity idolatry, and one tolerant of unsustainable levels of inequity? Hasn’t unbridled capitalism diminished solidarity and good government in equal measure?
It is heartening to see many of our public servants, several of whom are first generation immigrants, display their competence, professionalism and courage in support of these United States. Our citizens want to believe that they, rather than their DOJ inquisitors, represent us.
It’s encouraging that compassion, understanding, and partnership remain embedded in the caring citizens who say NO to kings, challenged mass ICE invaders, and (with the Catholic Church) lent a powerful voice to immigrants across our land.
In times like these, I rely heavily on a book my son, Mike, published with the University of Alabama Press in 2004, titled, “Emancipating Pragmatism: Emerson, Jazz, and Experimental Writing”. The book derived from his PhD dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, and extensively delved into the writings of both Ralph Waldo Ellison, author of “The Invisible Man”, and his namesake, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
So what did he say in his book that was so compelling that I turn to it today, on the eve of another Thanksgiving Celebration?
On page 3: Quoting Emerson, “To interpret Christ, it needs a Christ…to make good the cause of freedom against slavery you must be…Declaration of Independence walking.”
On page 7: On “fake news,” Mike writes, “Ultimately, Emerson came to believe that ‘America’ itself was a kind of text being read, its meaning a matter of collective decision. It followed that one’s linguistic theory, one’s view of how words generate meanings, had potentially large-scale social ramifications. In suggesting that words were ‘million-faced’, Emerson came to realize, he was suggesting that social possibility was remakeable.”
On page 18: On Change and Equity, “Emerson writes…’the philosophy we want is one of fluxions and mobility’”.
On page 19: On the American Culture and Diversity, “‘Out of the democratic principles set down on paper in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights’, Ellison says, Americans ‘were improvising themselves into a nation, scraping together a conscious culture out of various dialects, idioms, lingos, and methodologies of America’s diverse peoples and regions’”.
On page 24: On the Evolution of American Language and Culture, Mike quotes Ellison, “We forget, conveniently sometimes, that the language we speak is not English, although it is based on English. We forget that our language is such a flexible instrument because it has had so many dissonances thrown into it ….from Africa, from Mexico, from Spain, from God knows, everywhere.”
Page 25 and 28: On Creating Our History, Mike writes, “The jazz musician—who, Ellison says, always plays both ‘within and against the group’ — constantly reflects and redefines the ensemble in which he plays. Likewise the ensemble reflects and redefines the larger community to which it belongs….that (Ellison says) ‘anticipatory arena where actuality and possibility, past and present, are allowed to collaborate on a history of the future.’”
This has been a momentous week. We have made progress. We are not static, not trapped, not powerless or fixed in place. “Fluxions and Mobility” are certainly in play. But there is much left to be done. This should neither surprise nor discourage.
On the final page of Mike’s book, he writes, “An emancipated pragmatism happens whenever and wherever a creative mind or community of creative minds engages in democratic symbolic action.”
Democratic – Symbolic – Action. These are more than words. They are a culture of values. Our future is being written now. As Ken Burns recently claimed, the American Revolution was “the most important event in world history since the birth of Christ.” By going public in support of our nation’s immigrants, and putting their bodies on the picket lines this week, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops stepped into the revolution with Christ and against King Donald with both feet.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and regular contributor to THCB. He is the author of CODE BLUE: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex.(Grove/2020)
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