We Rise, We Fall, Now to Rise Again

These are scary but transformable times

Thinking of the state of our country today, I’m grateful for my knowledge of American history. I’m not a scholar, but I know enough to know that the challenges we face today are reiterations of challenges we have faced in the past. We’ve been through dark periods before, and we got through them before. This is not a time to give up on America.

America is not just a place, or the manifestation of financial or military or technological power. It is an an ideal - a country, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the idea that all men are created equal.” It is the notion, inscribed in our Declaration of Independence, that all men have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that no person or group of people should live under the weight of entrenched servitude to those more powerful. It is a repudiation of the aristocratic notion that only some people are entitled to the riches of life while others will never be able to procure them. It is a dedication to the idea that God created all of us equal, and that the law therefore should treat us that way.

Peter Zelei

We have never fully embodied that ideal; in fact we have sometimes acted as vicious and violent perpetrators against it. From our earliest beginnings, starting with slavery and extending through genocide of Native Americans, the institutionalized suppression of women, segregation, and the Red Scare of the 1950’s, there is an ugly side of bigotry and racism that has been laced throughout our history. But just as those phenomena were met with the force of brave generations pushing back against them, it’s the destiny of our generation to push back against the forces that would undermine the American ideal today.

It’s nothing new that America is both the best of things and the worst of things. We are many people and we are many things. We miss the point if we focus on any one trait in particular. Our history, as well as our present, is laced with instances of injustice; but it is also laced with instances of greatness. But which are we, some ask: a land of racist underpinnings, or a land of opportunity? The tragic irony is that America is both. We have always been both, and it is the task of our generation to reconcile the uncomfortable juxtaposition between the two.

Those who focus only on what America has done right are missing something important, willfully ignoring the shadows of both past and present, hypocritically avoiding the work of national self-improvement. But those who focus only on what America has done wrong are missing something important as well, failing to honor those in our past who have seen what was wrong and often at great sacrifice then made it right. Cynicism is just an excuse for not helping. We must reckon with and atone for what we have done wrong - and yes, we must teach it to our children, not burn the books that would reveal it to them. But we must also embrace the core values of American democracy, no matter how tattered and torn they might be, and teach those to our children as well - honoring those heroes who have furthered our democratic principles, and preparing them to be people who will further and protect them now.

For those who fear that America is a society in decline, the concern is legitimate. The pillars of our democracy have been shaken and are trembling still - from the suppression of democracy to the rise of homegrown authoritarianism to seemingly endless militarism to the corruption of our political institutions by corporate and financial interests. Criminal, racial and economic injustice rage. All of those things are true. But their continuation is not inevitable, and things are not so far gone that a miracle is not still yet possible.

And what is that political miracle now? It begins with a change not in our institutions but in ourselves - a fundamental break with the complacency, distractedness, and self-reference that allowed things to get this bad to begin with. An acknowledgement that in a quest for the attainment of our individual goals we’ve too often let the responsibilities of citizenship fall to the wayside, showing up to vote perhaps but beyond that farming out to a political class the work of steering our ship of state. And that was our mistake, not anyone else’s. When corporate lobbyists are talking to our lawmakers every hour of every working day, it’s not enough that they’ve only heard from us every two or four years. The American experiment is not guaranteed success; it is a work in progress. Democracy is never a fait accompli; it can never be taken for granted. Our generation is simply learning that the hard way.

So yes we are in trouble now. For forty years this country has flirted with disaster - and now it’s here. But disasters have plagued us before, and other generations did not give up; they responded. On some core level, for their own sake and for the sake of their children, they felt the American ideal was worth struggling for. And they did. They didn’t always know what to do. But they were convicted that whatever it was, it must be done, and they were willing to do it. That conviction became the beacon of light that led them to the finish line.

The struggle for economic and social justice is a difficult one today, but it’s no more difficult than what other generations have endured. Our ancestors who preserved and furthered our freedoms in the past were fierce, they were determined, and they were courageous. More than anything, they made themselves available to their moment. And they prevailed.

The activism and passion of our ancestors is alive today, however squashed it might sometimes be. These are scary but transformable times. The spirit to be better, to do better, both individually and collectively, is as alive in our psychic bloodstream as it has always been. I see it in so many people. I know that it is there.

So yes, it’s true that the worst face of the American character is showing itself today. And it is frightening. It is active, it is politicized, and it is on the move. There is no doubt about it. But there is something else, something beautiful and important, that is the deeper truth of who we are. And that is on the move as well. I see it in people bettering their lives against all odds, running for office against the corporate machine, unionizing in the face of intimidation, building community gardens, fighting injustice, facing the fears and dangers and intimidation thrown at them, yet getting up every morning to stand tall and proud for all that is good and true and beautiful for yet another day.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “When every hope is gone, when helpers fail and comforts flee, I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where.” I believe in my heart it will arrive for us.