Blasts From The Past (#3 of 3)

Today's post complements the Polite Escape entries by offering a look at the various shibboleths in our culture that reinforce the establishment of The Republic as he Absolute of our cultural religion.  The recent turmoil and chatter regarding the burning of the national flag, the stars and stripes thus being a talisman of that religion, is evidence of how this faith gets stirred to outrage and fear.  The shibboleths are the language of those fears and hopes.

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The American Dream and The Puritan Work Ethic                                 (September 9, 2004)

Let’s begin today with a hope.  The following was written by Pulitzer Prize winner, Galway Kinnell, before hip-hop adopted “what is” and before President Clinton raised the issue of the meaning of “is”.  I kind of like this “Prayer.”  I like Kinnell, too.  I met him once.

"Prayer"

Whatever happens.   Whatever

what is is is what

I want.  Only that.  But that.

Most of US take the two phrases in today’s title for granted.  We think everyone knows or ought to know what they mean.  But if you were to ask any 10 people born, reared and schooled in US, you’d find maybe one might have a vague idea.

Let’s begin with the American Dream.  The “dream” began in Europe in the minds and promotional schemes of people who wanted to exploit the resources of the “New World”.  The most effective original images of the Promised Land were drawn in the purple prose of Capt. John Smith’s journals of his explorations along the coasts of New England and Virginia.  He had been hired by the London stock companies to tempt hopeless and hapless people to establish colonies here.  It worked so well that other companies and countries applied the same principle straight through the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries.  A land of opportunity and exploitation awaits those who have nothing to lose but their destitution and personal history.  The American Dream erases the past and envisions a future where problems are set aside and hope is realized as a veneer covering the truth.   The first governor of Massachusetts Bay colony, William Bradford’s “beacon on a Hill” sermon has been reiterated over the centuries right up through the scheming mouth of Dick Cheney.  That beacon is re-constituted in the green light shining at the end of Jay Gatsby’s dock, the Jay Gatsby who was pal and partner to the underworld, hero to Fitzgerald’s flappers and phonies.

Well, what about the much vaunted Puritan Work Ethic?  Sounds great doesn’t it?  It comes from one of the several compromises the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony devised to make their rather harsh dictates a little more heavenly promising.  The Covenant of Good Works maintains that if you show good works (i.e., look like you’re working hard in the best interests of the community) you are demonstrating good faith.  This came down through the centuries (only in America) to mean that appearing to be doing something, anything is better than doing nothing (“Idle hands are the Devil’s tools” and all that nonsense).  The attraction in this is that good works will gain God’s blessings.  In our culture that means hard work will get you more money.  The kicker is that hard work frequently gets you only more hard work.  The latest facts from the Dept. of Labor are that American labor’s productivity is up 12% for this year, and per capita spendable income is flatlining.  Workers are piling up cash in the bottom line for the stockholders, but they’re watching their healthcare bills skyrocket, their daycare costs push the two income households hours beyond the limits of daycare (If we have 6 to 6 elementary schools, why not have 6 to 8 schools?), and so on.  Some companies are giving their workers yoga breaks so they can work 12 or 13 hours (NY Times, 9.7.04, pF1), no overtime, of course.

The American Dream and the Puritan Work Ethic are, so to speak, the coin of the realm.  One side has the smiling face of the benighted worker; the other side has the smirk of the owners raking in the lucre.  

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The misty-eyed magic so embedded in the shibboleths' utterances triggers the upwelling of exceptionalism's blessings in all Americans.  They represent the singular faith, the secularized mythos we rely on, and that plays us all, especially at times of hopelessness and haplessness.  Listen carefully to the huckster-in-chief.  He thrives on the shibboleths.