#134 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday September 3)
Good morning!
The school year is about to begin. Hopefully most schoolchildren will be able to attend school in person. And I hope that they will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I know it seems quaint and flies against the notion that everyone has the right to choose. And I know that some believe it is wrong to glorify the history of our nation. I disagree. There is much to celebrate and there are ideals articulated in the Constitution and throughout our history that are aspirational and worthy of learning and extoling.
My uncle, a high school history teacher and coach, was faced many years ago with a class that couldn’t see the value in reciting the Pledge each morning. His response was that he would waive the requirement if each student were to write an essay explaining the Pledge and what it meant to them. When the students complied, he agreed to abandon the practice. To his surprise, the students decided they wanted to recite the pledge (albeit only once a week). This story reminds me that we, as a people, don’t often appreciate our history, nor understand the purposes of some rituals and symbols.
I have been disappointed about how the American Flag lately has come to be seen as a talisman for many Trumpist election deniers, Proud Boys, those who violated the Capitol, and hard-right extremists. And it makes me sad. There is much that the American flag stands for that is worthy and ennobling—the crazy conspiracy theorists and deniers of science and defiers of the election results are not among them. They are unworthy of using the flag as a symbol but, again, it’s a free country…
I believe that the use of the American flag and the espousing of some sort of unhinged, angry “American values” mistakes patriotism (appropriate in reasonable doses in establishing common cause with a broader idealism and mission) with a “blood and soil” nationalism that is dangerous in nearly any form it has taken historically. There is a difference between the two.
All of this leads to the question of who really possesses the legacy of our forebears as we deal with the problems of the present and look to the future. It is very easy to chant “USA, USA, USA” at an international sporting event. But in this context, this is little more than cheering on one’s alma mater at a football game. It’s easy to talk about how great the country is in song or speechifying about its precariousness at a rally. It is something entirely different to embody the ideals that the nation represents. In that context, I would argue that the “true Americans” are the ones who appreciate the paradigm shift (before such thing was a phrase) that America represented at its founding, based upon expanding the rights of man, reducing the impact of class, self-determination, and the right to live freely and pursue one’s dreams (although it would be some time until these rights were extended more broadly throughout society). America has also been at the forefront of caring for our natural wonders, creating an environment for people to pursue their dreams, the pursuit of a just society, universal education, expanding opportunity more broadly, achieving great advances in the arts and sciences, and coming to the aid of those in need throughout the world—just to name a few of its many attributes.
Within this context, who is a “great American”? I think fighters for equal justice are closer to the ideals of the Constitution than are plaintiffs’ lawyers pursuing strike suits or people like Sydney Powell, who misuse the legal system to sow doubt about our institutions, solely in the pursuit of political power. Give me Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren or Potter Stewart over them any day. And I think current conservationists and preachers for clean energy (including nuclear) are closer to the ideals of Teddy Roosevelt, among the founders of the conservation movement and preservation of natural treasures, than are all the leaders of oil companies and “big agriculture” that have overly-exploited our land and abused our water resources.
Sometimes, it takes those from other countries to remind us of who we are (or at least aspire to be). Two such foreign visitors most readily come to mind for me:
Antonin Dvorak, the great Czech composer, spent a year at the Conservatory of Music in Spillville, Iowa in the mid-19th century. During that time, he found himself drawn to the natural beauty of our country and the indigenous music. Among the gifts he left the world was the “From the New World Symphony.” It was something of a love letter to America’s natural wonders, as well as the Negro spirituals and folk songs he heard here.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French philosopher and social observer, traveled throughout the country in the 19th century. In his travels, he attempted to chronicle this miraculous nation, so different from the old world. In his work, Democracy, he cites equality, individuality, and the avoidance of a tyranny of the majority as among the greatest attributes of our nation. He also noted the seeming contradiction of our democracy with the presence of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. Curiously, he toured some penitentiaries, noting that (at the time) rehabilitation and decent conditions were greater here than in his native France. If you want to fall in love with America again, pick up Democracy or The Federalist Papers or the speeches of Abraham Lincoln; they will rekindle the spirit of aspiration and hope for a better world upon which we were founded.
LOBOTOMIES AND SETTLED SCIENCE
I recently suggested in a Musing that the efficacy of masks limiting the transmission of disease was “settled science.” A couple of people admonished me that the science is not settled and that, in fact, no science is truly “settled.” Of course that’s true in some respects. Hypotheses are adopted to explain the observed world. Once science advances, some of these previously held beliefs fall by the wayside. One of these people cited the field of mental health, an area in which advances in understanding the human brain are slow in coming and which remains unsettled to this day. The person pointed out that lobotomies were considered the preferred method of treatment for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in the mid- 20th century. His point was that he science was “settled” back then (in a flawed and dangerous way—proven later completely wrong), but that that “settled” science was amended with new data.
This commentator then reasoned that the “science” of deploying masks to reduce the spread of disease is only a theory today and is subject to change as science evolves. Heis indeed correct that scientific theories remain the state of play until there is new data or observable fact to render the prior theory flawed in some way. The flaw in this person’s argument is that, while in the case of lobotomization, scientific data on their lack of success became clear; in this instance he is relying on the chance that there may later be information that could change our view of masks (utilized by doctors for decades). There is no evidence that masks are NOT efficacious and plenty of evidence that it is. This person merely points out that the theory MIGHT be proven false in the future, justifying ignoring the science of today in anticipation of future information. Were that the case, we would never follow any scientific theory at all, in the belief that there is NEVER a theory that is incapable of evolving!
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
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