It is confusing to be an American these days. I am certainly pessimistic about the future of our country, but in the America I knew as a child, it was almost heresy to proclaim anything, especially the future, as hopeless. We have imagined ourselves a people forever breaking new frontiers, conquering each problem that arises with gusto and success. Progress has been our motto, our guiding principle. In some areas it has been a blessing; for the environment and for those not able or not allowed to play this contrived game of success, the outcomes have been devastating.
Over the years, as a way to cope with the world as I perceive it, I have attempted to practice the values of different cultures; both those of indigenous peoples and those of Buddhism. But their ancient ways of relating to reality … their understanding of their place in the universe and the absolute interdependence of all things … is not truly deeply part of the American psyche I inherited.
As a child in the 50s, I was exhilarated by Old Glory waving over the green grass in Fenway park as the Star Spangled Banner rang out over the land of the free.
I was living then, as a relatively privileged white person, in a society in which I could remain utterly innocent of the evils that that same same flag had also flown over; genocide, slavery, misogyny, and war. I was too long ignorant of what many of our American symbols obscure.
Nonetheless, those early patriotic feelings have not been obliterated. Perhaps loyalty to the land we are born in is mostly driven by a powerful need to belong, but there are times I feel no different than when I was 10 years old and Old Glory was paraded down the street.
I wonder though, should our children be invited into a fantasy world where we tell them their hopes will flourish if they just try hard enough? And that human goodness always wins the day?
Most children worldwide have never even had the chance to dream such a dream. Syrian children crawl over stinking dumps every day to gather trash to sell for food. In Africa many toil in toxic mines to provide us with precious metals to maintain our progress. And in America 20% or more of children go to bed hungry every night.
Unquestionably, protesting present American injustices is a necessary act of valor despite its possible futility. It was what loyal Americans do, as is made clear by the Jan. 6 hearings. No matter what the outcome of our protest. And voting and trying to preserve the rights of others to vote are also vital to a continuing democracy.
But I understand, as well, how silence can overcome one’s spirit in the face of so many intricately interrelated catastrophes; it reminds me of what J. Robert Oppenheimer observed of those who witnessed the first atomic explosion; “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.”
Today I sense the world as I’ve known it for most of my life will never be the same. And a silence sometimes does seep into my soul, a soul shocked by our anguished helplessness in the face of ongoing human brutality and relentless global warming. Our blind insistence on progress and our disconnection from the earth is exacting a heavy toll. People can feel the violence and fear festering across the nation.
I am stymied as to what we can do to significantly alter our plunge toward brutal authoritarianism and total environmental destruction. Who should we imagine ourselves to be now? Can we make our lives meaningful and, at the same time, continue to tolerate the harm we do, as a nation, to other peoples and habitats around the globe? To women and to those we choose to categorize as minorities?
The answers I fear are, in the words of Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind.
Margot Fleck lives in Northfield.