There's usually a sliver of soap in my soap dish which leads some of my children to ask: "That looks silly, why keep just a sliver of soap?" To which I answer, "Because my Mother told me never waste anything...."
Her admonition was a common one during the Depression of the 30s and the War of the 40s. The notion of sacrificing something for "the cause" was a given in those hard-times days before children learned the bravado and bounty of America is forever. Several wars and recessions in recent years have done little to dissuade them from this illusion. Or to help them realize every society comes with an expiration date on it.
Saving soap and tires and sugar and tinfoil back then didn't cure the depression nor win the war. But what these small sacrifices did was allow everyone to feel they were part of a common cause. Like the football grunts on the line get little of the quarterback's glory, grunts working with other grunts can at least know they've helped make the glory possible.
Some critics call upon our leaders to demand similar sacrifices today. The problem is the disconnect between us grunts and today's causes. Professional armies fight our wars far from our everyday shores... economic experts manipulate our economy far from our everyday understanding.... political leaders may try to rub elbows with their constituents, but their decisions are made far removed from our everyday life.
John Locke wrote, "What worries you, masters you." And so most of us grunts are mastered by our worries about worry. The worry that we don't really understand what's happening in our complex, globalized world; and that just maybe even our quarterbacks don't either!
Notice the summer kids with their little lemonade stands...? Whether they know it or not, they're practicing capitalism. Well, more of us grunts sacrificing some of our excesses would be practicing democracy. We would be substituting the angry ravings of today's self-indulgent birthers and end-of-lifers with the sacrifices of those old fashioned put-up-or-shut-uppers. Like Mom.
Sacrificing personal indulgences in the midst of national struggle will always be worth a hundred times more than spewing collective invectives. The second takes angry words....the first takes real work.
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Country needs more moms like that....!
ReplyDeleteYes, moms and schools and governments capable of rallying the better angels in all of us. Trouble is, a half century of power and greed may have hypnotized those angels to sleep
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