Do we know who we really are?
Is there an American identity?
I was born in 1957. In my mind the greatest era to be born in America. Of course, I am considered white by race, so I had advantages that many were not privileged to.
What made the era so great was the great revolution. The definition of the Constitution. It was a time that Americans demanded the Constitution be defined properly and adhered to. I am talking about the Civil Rights movement, the protest against an illegal war (Vietnam), the Women's Rights Movement, The Gay Rights movement, and the Migrant Workers Movement lead by Ceasar Chavez. The Music was awesome and had meaning as well.
We had a national identity. We threw off the shackles of stereotypes and institutional prejudices. We were proud Liberals that demanded JUSTICE.
Yes, we tore down institutions, but not for the sake of just destroying things. We did our level best to tear down institutional injustices. We fought against the Red Scare (Joe McCarthy's red herring), the UnAmerican Activities Committee (John Wayne & Ronald Reagan), Jim Crow, and other institutions that fostered prejudice and hate.
Sure, we were idealist but we saw a greater America, an inclusive America, a truly free America. That often meant with shooting down symbols that perpetuated and fostered the old hateful idealism, like, beauty pageants and the Boy Scouts. We knew that the REAL America wasn't a Leave to Beaver episode nor a Hallmark card.
You can look at it like this.
Many people like paintings by Norman Rockwell but is it art? No, it is a depiction of an America that is exclusive and segregated. It doesn't show the reality of life. It's a sham.
So now there is a huge conflict of America. A war of idealism. A war between a sham and reality. The conservatives want to return America to the Norman Rockwell painting a life in America that never ever existed. And the Liberal idea that we should face reality, treat all people with respect, take care of those in need, provide equal opportunity for all.
When conservatives say that they want to "make America great again", and "we want our country back", they are alluding to the ideal the fiction of the Norman Rockwell painting. They are saying that they want Jim Crow, to end civil rights, to discriminate against women and gays, to exploit migrant works, to have illegal wars, to allow police brutality, to force religion (as long as it's christian) on everyone, to maintain the Red Scare, to blackball people from jobs because they are jewish or communist or not republican.
And the cost for those republicans is that they are in bed with Nazis, fascist, racist, white supremacist.
This has become a big problem for republicans. They don't want to be identified as a fascist etc, BUT they either remain silent or endorse the actions of these domestic terrorists. All because they want the Norman Rockwell painting America. They are suffering a national identity crises.
But we Liberals aren't any better. We have become too complacent. The phrase "freedom isn't free" wasn't made up by some conservative. It is a famous Liberal declaration!
I am just as bad. It has been a long time that I got up off of my ass and marched.
As I saw the travesty in Charlottesville, I think on Heather Heyer, who stood up for what she believed in. A greater America, an America that is inclusive and truly free. She didn't get into any fights. She didn't become disruptive or belligerent. She was innocently walking on a side street away from the fights when she was MURDERED!
I am ashamed of myself for not being there. I am mad that I am alive to post these words and she is dead.
I once had an identity one that fought for America. I've become too complacent. Thinking that 22 years military service was enough. Thinking that just voting when it was convenient was enough. Well, it's not enough. Obviously, it's not enough. At 59 I don't know if I have the energy anymore.
So I guess what I am saying is that we have to find out who we are, what kind of nation we want to be, and be that nation.
In loving memory to a great American Heather Heyer.
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mykcob4,
Great post.
Very well said!
Thanx for the replies.
In memory of: Heather Heyer.
I also thank you for the service you did to this country mykcob4
I feel at your age, and the service you done, it should not be your fight anymore. Other, younger people should fight in your stead if they have values like yours.
I too feel that 1955-1980 was the best years of the US by many measures. So much progress done on rights for all races and genders. So much progress on a large, well educated, safe middle class. The cold war was ugly, but in the end no nuclear bombs dropped the US has much prosperity and advanced greatly on almost all measures.
Thanx Logic
And, none of it matters in the slightest what the human animal is, aspires to, runs from, runs to, pretends to be, conjures up, champions, berates, immortalizes or obfiscates, etc...
None of that matters. It never has and never will. Man has no purpose and it slays the logic to think an argument for purpose can only be found in the imagination, as this thread starter's message is conjured from, and yet no one needs to agree or disagree with anything because it just doesn't matter.
There's not a contributor on this forum who matters. No one wants to admit that because they either can't fathom being meaningless life forms, or they're still holding out for some vague notion of the supernatural to fetch them something promising to make it all better with comforting thoughts.
The human animal is a reactionary one and no prescription for morality or ethics is going to imprint it with the utopian big-talk of soap-boxing self-ascribed pundits stumping their feigned altruism. That's a belly laugh going back into antiquity as big talkers talked and the ignorant masses fell for it as they were issued uniforms and weapons and told to take what was rightfully theirs to take.
Man needs a bullet between his collective eyes to fix the problems he's made for himself, yet blames everyone and everything but himself for. Religion needs to die. Culturalism needs to die. Nationalism needs to die. Racism needs to die. Where does that leave man? Undefined. All those bad things are what makes humanity what it is. Kill those things and you kill man.
Good luck with that.
Might as well hang yourself, pitar.
@Pitar: "none of it matters"
When all hope and meaning have gone, we can always rely on good old nihilism to see us through the crisis.
Pretty pessimistic view you got there Pitar.
You could be right on all those points, but you also fail to add things. Warming your self by the fire when you are cold. Sharing your thoughts with people, (I feel you would not be here posting these things if you did not get some sense of enjoyment or satisfaction from that.) Experiencing love (even if you believe it is just a chemical process in your brain.) Eating tasty food. Achieving something you or others thought you could not do. Creating things, like art, raising your child, building a piece of useful furniture.
Humans certainly have their problems and it can feel sometimes like it is only the bad that defines us. But I think if you look, you can find the good too. You can build your life around the good as much as you can, up your own odds, etc.
Sometimes Pitar you are an utter disgrace.
I disagree with being so careless pessimist. Aside from being religious there is something profound to be involved in human affair, at least with closest relative. I get this from the walk of life instead from books or lectures.
The only thing herds do in their life is walk sniffing the ground for food and eat it, and resting while digesting the food, day in day out until death comes, or get killed. Human has legacy left behind where the children remember and as well as the people that came in contact with.
I know someone at work that he is the only child of his parent. But there is no uncle or aunt from mother or father side. His father has a cousin, a woman, but she never married no children. Now his parent are dead he lives alone, let alone marriage - he never had a girlfriend. He always at work, accumulating money for nothing, inherited two houses. He is an atheist, non drinker non gambler no social life, no charity. A herd with chunk of money in the bank waiting for his death.
But did he actually planned all of this? No, his upbringing made him that way. I braved myself once for the sake of friend, I told him about what I thought when we were alone, . His voice was shaken when he said; "If you said this when we first met ages ago, but it is too late now".
I went to work mate funeral about 3 years ago, a friend which I told him many many times to stop smoke so he can live healthy and contributes. He died childless in the end, even his only brother only sent a postcard which was read to us by the funeral manager, it read: "He was an asshole, but lets forget the past". And that was the word from a guy who end up inherited his two houses and his super money.
zwalja,
There's a passage in Ecclesiastes 4:8 (CEB) that sums up your friend's situation = "8 There are people who are utterly alone, with no companions, not even a child or a sibling. Yet they work hard without end, never satisfied with their wealth. So for whom am I working so hard and depriving myself of enjoyment? This too is pointless and a terrible obsession."
It seems that people have always been this way.
Thanks Diotrephes for the passage I did look up, and that is spot on.
It seem it is not new phenomena after all, albeit it is kind of disheartening. I have met many of this kind.
zwalja,
I really enjoy reading the secular books, such as Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Apocrypha books. They are more focused on the human condition.
@Pitar
We all know Mykcob4 is an illogical, idealistic prick but that doesn't mean you have to remind us of our meager existence in the universe.
No one wants to hear that, it's very dreary same reason most people don't want to hear God is not real. Yes it's all true but you could phrase it much better, not unless you just wanted to belittle Mykcob4 which I'm not against, but you don't have to be rude to everybody else in the process.
Odds are we probably all live in a simulation anyway but I put my hope in science, to discover more about everything.
@closet_atheist.
You may not like me and not agree with me, but I am not illogical. Yes, I am a prick to those who just blather their idiotic ideologies, the conservatives that serve greed and corruption. I don't suffer fools nor do I tolerate blatant ignorance.
I wrote a tribute to a well deserving American. A person that sacrificed for others. A person that didn't seek glory and only sought equality....not for herself but for others. A person that fought against hate and discrimination.
But you and Pitar are so cynical that you can't see that. Like Pitar you are an utter disgrace.
I know why you have done it. I know why Pitar did it. You and Pitar are bitter and want revenge for the stinging replies I have made to some of your posts. Replies that were spot on in exposing some utter nonsense that you have posted. This is your revenge.
Don't worry and rest assured that my feelings aren't hurt. You can't stain a tribute to a well deserving American. All you can do, the both of you, is wallow in the cynicism that you are mired in.
Well i would have to disagree with Pitar on his entire comment, people can find meaning in however they like... I know some atheist who fully subscribe to a notion mooted by evolutionary biology, that our purpose is the same of that of the first self replication entity... to multiply.
The purpose of all life is is simply to multiply if you take it at face value.
Personally, I'm not sure on this as I've rarely giving this subject any major consideration, mostly because I find it a question of vanity.
Why do we need to have a meaning? Can we not just exsist? I don't even find it important in the slightest! I would be more interested in knowing why I constantly misplace my car keys then have the answer for that.
I just live to enjoy the short time I have and take in as much as I can... read great literature, converse with people, star gaze etc...
I do not think anyone is insignificant, but the question of meaning is very insignificant.
But back on topic Mykcob4, thank you for the well written homage to the young lady that lost her life recently.
@Mykcob4
"I wrote a tribute to a well deserving American. A person that sacrificed for others. A person that didn't seek glory and only sought equality....not for herself but for others. A person that fought against hate and discrimination."
Your Original post sounded a lot more like a bash of republicans and a promotion of progression. If you were writing a tribute why not commemorate her life. Speak about her struggles and accomplishments. Who she was as a person.
Not use her death as an excuse to push your own liberal agenda.
Now that's the real disgrace...
@closet
Her life WAS about freedom and opportunity for all which IS the Liberal agenda as you call it. It was the conservative agenda that murdered her. Conservatives are in bed with racists and nazis, they always have been. Trump made that abundantly clear. To excuse the alt-right is to endorse the alt-right. You own it. The only way to not own it is to separate yourself from those racists which the conservatives refuse to do, therefore they are racists and nazis.
I feel the same way. I'm very sorry that she had to die. Great post Myck.