“For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others.” Frederick Douglass West India Emancipation speech 1857.
What does “American” mean to you? Land of the free? Land of capitalism? Home of the brave? Home of the lucky or entitled? There are so many definitions, connotations and assumptions attached to this word. Often, these days, the answer to this question reveals more about a person’s political views than any understanding of American identity or character.
Modern media, politics and the demographic landscape separate us from one another, feed us what we want to hear and tell us what this country is. It is past time to reflect on our shared reality, our shared identities, and acknowledge our shared values. This includes the shared rights and responsibilities that our politicians, chosen media sources and virtual friends only want us to think about when it benefits them and their goals.
It appears today that we are as far apart as we’ve ever been. Perform a cursory search on American polarization and there are more than enough books, blogs, news sites and programs to tell you all the ways in which we are separate and why. There are also resources illuminating ways we can mend this. One thing that is hard to find is discussion of what we share (there are some great groups and sites that do this, which you can find on this blog’s “links” page). We need common ground and we need to create, insist on and fight for it. For it is what our nation was built on and it will not be given to us.
In America, we like to talk about freedom. We don’t like to exercise freedom, work for it or be challenged in our conception of it. There seems to be an attitude that because we won the Revolutionary War that we are and will forever be free. Americans have never stopped fighting for their freedoms: think the Civil War, the fight for unionization, anti-trust battles, the New Deal, the Civil Rights struggle, the suffrage and women’s rights movements, movements to impose and end prohibition, movements for and against sexual freedom and equal rights… the list could go on endlessly with efforts led by groups, individuals, government entities, businesses and countless civic organizations that all entered the public arena to assert their rights and freedoms. This is as it should be in a thriving democracy, and is wrecked by complacency, comfort, boredom and intractability.
Theodore Roosevelt spoke to a crowd in Buffalo, New York, in 1883. He was speaking about the duties of American citizenship. He said, “…freedom is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards: nor yet does it tarry long in the hands of … the man so much absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure or in the pursuit of gain, or so wrapped up in his own easy home life as to be unable to take part in the rough struggle with his fellow men for political supremacy.” If we want a better Congress (their current job approval rating is 22% at the highest) we need to get out there and run for office, work for people we trust and believe in, demonstrate, lobby our elected officials, write letters (yes, physical ink-on-paper letters), talk to our fellow citizens, form local civic groups, in short, take part in the rough struggle.
There is no shortage of shouters, loud voices and angry rhetoric right now. The kind of action Theodore Roosevelt cited as an American duty is not more shouting. T.R. said, “If freedom is worth having, if the right of self-government is a valuable right, then… [they] must be retained exactly as our forefathers acquired them, by labor, and especially by labor in organization.” We share a freedom to govern ourselves and determine our national government. If we disapprove of our government and the job it is doing, we have only ourselves to blame. We have ceded civic ground to the corporate interests and the extreme-tempered of our country. No amount of shouting is going to gain that ground back. We must rebuild the eroded common ground of citizenship, one conversation, one group, one district at a time. It is our shared and patriotic duty.
This cannot and will not be done through the tribalism and take-no-prisoners attitudes that have come to define political action in contemporary America. “…It must be done”, as T.R. put it, “in combination with others, he yielding to modifying certain of his own theories and beliefs so as to enable him to stand on a common ground with his fellow, who have likewise yielded or modified certain of their theories and beliefs.” It requires open conversation, compromise, cool tempers, respect and empathy. Part of the reason we have a low opinion of Congress is that they have stopped dealing with issues and passing bills into law. When our representatives can’t agree if something is or isn’t a pressing matter they don’t even debate it. When they face a difficult vote that they might have to explain or stand by, they instead decide to kick the can down the road with a half measure that fixes nothing. This congress is paralyzed by a lack of compromise and impetus to find common ground. They are derelict in their American duty.
As they are, so are we. Simply voting in the presidential election is what has brought us here. Hell, I vote in all major elections and that, too, is what has brought us here. While we have been exercising (or not in many people’s cases) our right to vote, we have been shunning most other forms of political engagement. Many people offer various reasons as to why they aren’t more involved (I have my own I offer up), but none of them are good enough when placed alongside the state of our democracy. In 1857, Frederick Douglass spoke these words in regards to emancipation, and they ring true to our civic involvement today: “The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her… have been born of earnest struggle… If there is no struggle there is no progress.” Too many of us stand aside while the extreme and powerful take part in the struggle for their liberties and freedoms, not ours.
Our rhetoric, politics and ability to govern is beyond our control because we have let it go. “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” Douglass said. He was speaking to a power that was much easier to see, and therefore the demands were plainly spoken: emancipation and equality for the enslaved. We are subject to a power far more diverse, and so our demands are diverse and at times seem at odds with one another, rendering them weak. Our politicians, business owners, law enforcement and employers use this to their advantage, and we, in turn, see the system as rigged and are less and less likely to get involved. “The limits of tyrants,” Douglass said, “are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Our tyrants are many, making the very word seem bombastic, but make no mistake, it is useful and applicable to the very system we work for, pay into and elect. We have created so many small tyrants because we are busy and thirst for convenience and comfort.
We have the system we voted for and chose, and we greatly dislike it. “Men may not get all they pay for in this world,” Douglass went on speaking of the struggle we must engage in, “but they must certainly pay for all they get.” He was speaking about the fight for freedom of the enslaved (we all still have a debt to free our society from this great weight), but he also spoke philosophically about the constant American struggle to retain the freedoms of a self-determined democracy and free society. If we want a government that is responsive, responsible and supportive of our lives and values, then we must pay with our time, attention and participation. These are not easy things, but a life of ease has gotten us here and has not made things easier. Freedom is not for the weak-hearted and lazy. It is dangerous. It demands courage and a thick skin.
It is with that in mind I end with the final paragraph of Theodore Roosevelt’s speech on the duties of American citizenship, lest we forget that the legions of Americans that came before us did not sacrifice so that we might live in the mindless comfort of despotism, oligarchy, theocracy or corporate police state; they sacrificed their time, money, freedom, property, comfort and lives so that we might all participate in the ongoing self-determination and governance that is democracy.
“In facing the future and in striving, each according to the measure of his individual capacity, to work out the salvation of our land, we should be neither timid pessimists nor foolish optimists. We should recognize the dangers that exist and that threaten us: we should neither overestimate them nor shrink from them, but steadily fronting them should set to work to overcome and beat them down. Grave perils are yet to be encountered in the stormy course of the republic – perils from political corruption, perils from individual laziness, indolence and timidity, perils springing from the greed of the unscrupulous rich, and from the anarchic violence of the thriftless and turbulent poor. There is every reason why we should recognize them, but there is no reason why we should fear them or doubt our capacity to overcome them, if only each will, according to the measure of his ability, do his full duty, and endeavor so to live as to deserve the high praise of being called a good American citizen.” -Theodore Roosevelt 1883
a united state 