The role and rule of contradiction has been coronated in our America. It thrives everywhere...!
Enormous wealth side by side with enormous poverty, stunning success neck and neck with disastrous failure, historic progress shoulder to shoulder with historic decline. But if you really want to experience this full throttle, try sitting in a public waiting room. Service shop, hospital, wherever. Sit there and indulge yourself in everything that's wrong with your world coming out of that television set, and then everything that's right with it coming out of those magazine issues.
Sure they're back editions, but my how they render the perfect solution to every problem in your life. Acne, wrinkles, obesity, colicky babies, destructive two-year olds, how to salvage your next block party, ways to save your marriage, tips for breaking the bank at Vegas, 3-minute casseroles to stun your guests, oh plus 10 easy-herbal-tea methods for overcoming clinical depression. And just think -- you're not even paying for these nifty answers!
But then you glance back up to the screen. Riots in the middle east, fires in California, tornadoes in Oklahoma, bank failures in New York, the ubiquitous closeups of grieving family members of the murder victim, talk shows that won't stop talking, and wait -- breaking news from a new campus shootout!
Exactly who are we, then? The land of the new Sodom & Gomorrah, or that Shining City on a Hill? Will the real America please stand up.
To be sure, the answer to most contradictions is: Yes! Yes, opposites do co-exist, but yes they do generate a kind of synergy all their own. The challenge -- as individuals and as a nation -- is somehow transforming what's so wrong with us into agendas for what can still be right about us.
We hardly lack for leadership in this tasking. Political leaders, reformers, researchers, educators, clergy, and lets not forget the most efficacious of all -- dreamers. They're everywhere trying to be heard.
When we listen carefully, the only ones who say silly things like "If you can dream it you can do it" are at sales meetings, motivation seminars, and such. Our really best dreamers are more modest. Instead, they put it this way: "So long as you reach for the stars, at least you won't come up with a handful of mud."
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Jack, your comment following my comment about your blog "Killing God..." settles the matter as far as I'm concerned. We're two civilized gentlemen and as such tweak an old cliché and say: "Believe and let believe." No wars, no crusades!
ReplyDeleteI marvel at your ability and willingness to write a full book page every day. For me your litanies and juxtapositions, which appear in almost every blog, signal your vast informational background. In just today's blog regarding "Waiting Room" mags you have: wealth/poverty, success/failure, progress/decline. You also have Acne, wrinkles, obesity, colicky babies, two-year olds, block parties, marriage, banks, Vegas, casseroles, teas, depression, leadership, reformers, researchers, educators, clergy, dreamers. One could say just one of those words and you'd be able to deliver at least a mini-lecture! Just think, your 80 blogs are equivalent to a novella! Congratulations.
Jay, like painters who can't stop painting every day, some writers feel much the same compulsion. Now if they were to have as many articulate reviewers as you and my Tribune readers, that alone might make writing worth getting up for each morning
ReplyDeleteYou ask for the real America to stand up....I SO agree!!! If it doesn't soon, we are ALL going to fall down HARD...and I fear we won't be able to ever quite get back up!
ReplyDelete"We hardly lack for leadership in this tasking. Political leaders, reformers, researchers, educators, clergy, and lets not forget the most efficacious of all -- dreamers."
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe this to be true, I think we need a better "mix" of all of these to get effective results. Perhaps what we really need is the best mixologist of "real world issues" to take over!
Becky, finding who the REAL you is is always tough. For nations and for people alike. I suppose it's a life-long search with a good many twists, turns and surprises along the way. For the last half-century America has had good reason to feel like the cock-of-the-walk. Today we're learning to strut our stuff in a more crowded barnyard. And that's OK!
ReplyDeleteEmily, I couldn't have said it better. After all, my dreamers with their heads in the sky still need your pragmatists with their feet on the ground. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that our new president may be just the kind of "mix" you're talking about
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