Bill Bishop’s The
Big Sort excellently explains and delineates how the cultural explosions of
the 60s fragmented and factionalized the US into satellites of “like-minded”
communities. Thus, we Americans sorted
ourselves into comforting mutual admiration mini-cultures, which, for the most
part, disdained but did not confront the other mini-cultures. It would seem that such a life would be the
happiness that we were ordained to pursue.
But we had forgotten and forsaken the better
wisdom of the founders. The states and
the mini-cultures in them were not to be singular; they were to be united. The problem with our post-industrial, post-modern
world is that it has sparse memory. What
little memory we have involves only the chaos and fear of the 60s. We sought the solace and serenity of our
like-mindedness as a bulwark against what we could not bother to contemplate
and understand. It got in the way of
our rampant consumerism.
A few years ago I did some research into the
origins and manifestations of rap and hip hop.
One manifestation that warrants a great deal more research and analysis
is the graffiti, or, as the “writers” preferred to call it, “taggin’.” Taggin’ is the more appropriate term. When it began (partially as a reaction to the
chaos and terror surrounding the representative neighborhoods, the likeminded
communities), it functioned as shout outs to the home community and competitive
call outs to the other satellite communities in the region. A debate remains whether it started in the
Bronx, Brooklyn or Philadelphia. The
debate notwithstanding, the fact remains that its bedrock was social and
psychological communication.
For all that Bill Bishop tells us about the
religious, tribal and economic causes of “the big sort,” he neglects to discuss
this phenomenon within the marginalized communities. And what distinguishes
them from the comfort-seekers among the dominant communities is that they were
reaching out to each other.
I won’t go into the historical sources of this re-socializing
phenomenon in the history of the American and South American slave trade. My point is that it sustained a survival
mechanism based on shared cultural identifications, grounded in competitive art
forms. That is, as the turmoil around
these marginalized groups imminently threatened to sort them into increasingly
impotent satellites, they promoted a traditional de-sorting procedure that
promised to re-group their energies and their identities.
I have a feeling that this is precisely what
Barack Obama had in mind when he talked about change. He wanted to de-sort our nation. He wanted to dislocate the 40 year emphasis
on difference and divisiveness. He
wanted to shout out the identity that we all once shared, a United States of America, to reject our
fear and acrimony. Re-charge our energies
to do the right things. Ignore calls for
dishonor. Make US a good people again.
Ironic end note:
Near the end of his book, in a footnote, Bishop cites Obama, saying
“Illinois senator Barack Obama presented himself early in the 2008 campaign as
the man of the earth candidate [a class of arbitrators in the Nuer tribe of the
upper Nile…had no formal powers, but they had cultural authority to settle
disputes], the politician able and eager to speak to—and listen to—all sides.”
This sad and edgy irony is what currently impels us Americans into a murky and foul unknown.
