THE AMERICAN ASPIRATION

 

America is aspirational. It has always been more about ideals than origins. That is in part why reviewing our history has been necessary and controversial, because so much of what was considered traditional history focused on ideals and excluded obvious contradictions. Originally, and for some time thereafter, the truths held to be self-evident in the founding documents were not evinced in most people’s daily lives. Equality, liberty, and justice have only gradually, and often grudgingly, been ceded by the powerful. This was a process, a struggle, to achieve those ideals. It continues to this day.

In retrospect, those struggles were aspirational, and they remain inspirational. Ideals are more important than origins. What we make of ourselves is more important than where we came from. That is as true today as it was before the nation was even conceived by persons who came for many reasons, not all honorable, often ignoble. Whether seeking fortune or fleeing oppression, the variegated characters, who brought forth the beginnings of what we now have, all aspired to something better, here, sea to shining sea, and parts between.

Everywhere in our land is America. Everyone here is part of the aspiration to make this nation. In the effort to find common ground, America is still a work in progress. New arrivals and citizens with a long pedigree alike aspire to the idea of being American. As others fought to give us liberty, we must struggle every day to preserve it. This struggle takes place first inside each of us. It starts with recognizing the common dream: We may differ in some ways, but there is at the core a shared vision based on the ideals which are the heart and soul of our hopes and dreams, for ourselves and for our nation as a whole.

Much is made of the American Dream. Unfortunately, the dream has come to be more about a lifestyle and material trappings than about the conditions that provide for even those paltry things, let alone the things that really matter. What good are things without enjoyment?  More is made of the things themselves than the environment, both natural and social, that allows for us to enjoy them. Owning a house, rather than having a home, is the stated goal. A house is not a home without the family and feeling to fulfill it. Property is not only seen as more important than happiness but also seems often to replace it in people’s lives. But things never could replace the love of those who truly love us and show it in unaccounted ways beyond price. In our ad-driven lives, gifts have replaced giving. We speak of experience-based buying or, simply, buying experiences, instead of having and sharing moments in our lives with those we love and who love us. Spending money on something is the emphasis rather than spending time with others.

We fail to ask the obvious questions. How can anyone enjoy anything when others are suffering right next door? It’s both practical and emotional. For when the gap between the wealthy few and impoverished many grows too great, the wealthy lose the richness of daily life in a stable community. The freedom to move safely, to go shopping or to school, to participate in ordinary life, is lost. When happiness is perceived as material, not emotional, where is the satisfaction that comes from helping, from serving others? We become more consumers and less citizens. No longer neighbors, we isolate ourselves with these attitudes and the way we think and speak. We say there are winners and losers, but we all have lost community. Even our most intimate relationships become strictly business. Everything is seen as competition. When we believe it, we are not neighbors and friends, but sadly customers and vendors, suppliers and clients, or worse adversaries for scarce goods and service. Here, surrounded by abundance and waste, there are those who seek only to get more for themselves. Ironically, they often are the ones with the most already. Even a marriage is seen cynically as a contract.

Too many would-be role models in the public eye embody these cynical values, regardless of anything they may say. They claim to have values and religion. They act and express themselves to the contrary most of the time. We have leaders invoking biblical text to justify oppression and torture. Some fail to see the hypocrisy in these leaders, political and religious, and cultural, celebrities and others in the spotlight. This is true across the spectrum of political affiliation. We all know the abuses of the powerful, the lip service to ideals in direct contradiction to their personal actions. It’s time for us all to wake up. For the great majority of us this a non-issue in our own lives. For us, it doesn’t have to be that way. We genuinely care even for relative strangers every day and especially in times of need. We have kept true to our dreams and aspirations. We follow the aspiration to be ideal Americans, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to the least as we do to the ones we most revere.

It must be repeated, because many are still asleep, and need to be awakened: Those ideals are not reflected in our political leaders’ speech or actions.

Slogans and worse, name calling, have replaced policies and reasoned arguments in our political discourse. In effect both the powerful and the powerless are reduced to rock throwing in a divided glass house. Reality TV has become our reality and the audience is also a cast member. We find ourselves at the mercy of executive pronouncements and tweets. Unfiltered moods and outright falsehoods flood the news cycle causing chaos. People in power abuse their positions both in the bully pulpit and for personal gain. It starts at the top. Although many of us seek to be better in our aspirations as Americans, it is not true of everyone. To be better in our roles as family members, friends, coworkers, neighbors, better citizens, and better leaders should be universal. The traitors are those who resort to divisive language and action, who accuse others of being unpatriotic or unAmerican.

It has always been so, here and in other places, that such divisive demagoguery is mostly to distract from the stealing, the corruption, of the demagogues themselves. We should never confuse loyal opposition with treason. We should recognize the exercise of democratic rights and respect them when that exercise is lawful and respectful. But when it incites violence and hatred, we should oppose and arrest it.  Anyone can make that distinction. Hate groups inciting violence and advocating hate speech are obviously different from peaceful protesters, inciting us to recognize the failures in our ideals and aspirations. Protests have always aimed to bring us back to the promise of the founding words and remind us of what American exceptionalism really means: An aspiration to a set of ideals. We also need to recognize self-serving betrayal at the top for what it is. When our leaders join in the distortions and lies, they make the problem worse. We need to see that for what it is. We can easily see their reasons, when personal profit is going on at the same time. As a matter of principle, we must aspire to the ideals and not the symbols. We must look at the actions of our leaders, and not give credence to their words when their actions say otherwise. When protesters are criticized for not respecting a symbol, while the leaders themselves have no respect for the constitutional ideals for which it stands, our nation stands in peril. Symbols have become more important than what they stand for. That is something none of us should ever stand for.

A significant number believe we needed a shakeup from the top to expose the illusions of our faulty democratic vision. The electoral system is broken. That may be something we can all agree on. Let’s do a quick checklist. Some would rightly say the institutions and officials fail to serve people’s needs. Check. Others would point to the fact the system allows mediocre and unqualified candidates to win. Check. Some people like what is happening, and believe it is the right direction, right now. Well, you can fool some of the people all of the time. Check. We have always had lying politicians. Check. But we have never had outright lying and factual inaccuracy to this degree ever before. Some actually disagree with that. Some of the people believe nothing new is going on. Check. How can that be? We have been lying to ourselves about the character of our society. Check. We have fudged on sticking to the ideals and principles laid out in the original promise. Check. We the people in order to perform an expedient governance have lied to ourselves about our values. Check. Isn’t it now the time to quit lying? Quit lying to ourselves. Check. Quit accepting lies from government officials. Check. Confront reality face to face, shoulder to shoulder. Check. We are still one nation. Check.

Being American is not a contract we enter into and opt out of at will. As citizens we have a duty to each other and to the seminal ideals on which the nation was formed. Our leaders and others take the oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend, but sadly now they seem have abandoned the oath. They claim to be defending in the very act of undermining and offending against the letter of the law, let alone the ideals they should aspire to. They are not alone. Some citizens who claim to love this country either do not know or have forgotten the fundamental principles of the nation they claim to love. They claim they have respect for the law while flouting it and supporting flagrant transgressions against others in their communities and generally by corrupt leaders at all levels of government.

What can honest people do to counter this hypocrisy?

We must prevent our passions from getting the best of us and seek the better angels of our nature for guidance. Remember the deeds and words of those who came before and advanced the cause of freedom and justice for all. Harken again to the ever-present memory from every struggle and every past act of patriotic adherence to the truths held self-evident. As a great leader stated on the day he took office,we are not enemies, but friends. If we keep that in mind as we wrangle this animal of Americanism and the effort to make this a better place for all, every living heart across this land will once again beat to the music of differences within the same American chorus, and from the many we will become one. Where we begin should never determine who we can become. In these most conflicted times it is time to revive the American Aspiration, which is the desire to fulfill the promises of the stated principles and strive for the ideals on which this nation was founded, explicitly, to form a more perfect union.

Keshav L. Kamath

July 4, 2018