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July 4, 2003
Lets just call it the start of Summer.
On this Fourth of July, I must say that I don't feel much like throwing
a party on behalf of my country. In milder times it functions as the
American Midsummer, but this Independence Day is bound to be a real
flag-waver. For my part, the recent war and attendant wave of preemptive
patriotism alienated me plenty, and losing my Federal job at the hands
of anti-public service ideologues hasn't helped my attitude either.
So I'm unbalanced, a condition Holidays are meant to alleviate by
reiterating the norms of our culture. But nothing has been "normal"
lately, from the weather to affairs of state. With weather, we can talk
about averages. Between last year's drought and this year's drip, it's
been an average couple of years, but that's not how it feels to live
through the two extremes. Still, the weather is usually thought of as just a
background; the medium in which our lives take place, but not of the
same substance. If I insist on the seasonal character of the Holidays,
their basis in natural rhythms through which we also subsist, it's as a
way of arguing that we and the weather really are of the same stuff, after all. Even
so, no one wants to think of their life as merely average. We may dissemble, extolling the "average guy", but every ego harbors its private hopes
and dreams, even if these too are utterly average, as mundane as the
desire to rule the world, or to be loved.
Power and adoration. This is all anybody really wants, and pretty much
everybody wants it, despite the possible contradiction between the
fantasies. It's one thing for us to work through these urges in the
course of our uniquely average lives, but quite another to see them writ
large as our nation acts out on a global scale. It's hard to rule the
world and to be loved for it, unless you're very virtuous. And most of
us are not quite as virtuous as we would like to think.
Today's holiday reflects another general fantasy, or thing everyone
knows: that Home is the best place of all. This is a good way to feel,
so long as its complement is a heightened appreciation of the world
beyond one's borders, in all its myriad otherness. Trouble starts when
we cannot tolerate the differences, and try to make the whole world over
in our own image. To do so will require such an exercise of power that
it may cost us all the love the world has to give. But this is no average country (as we are fond of noting,) so maybe our future will be different than the rest of the world's history.
Or maybe not.
At least we will love ourselves, even if no one else loves us.
No matter what special calling we imagine for ourselves, and, by extrapolation, for our nation, I'm sure we'd all be happy at the moment with just an average Summer to bask in. It seems like it’s finally here. Sun and heat have at last replaced the endless dankness of June (and May, and April...) It’s about time, but tardy as it is, the balmy turn feels more like Memorial Day’s inauguration of the season, rather than the high Summer typical of the Fourth. So let’s ignore our nation’s doings, and take heed of the land itself, welcoming back the warmth, and soaking up the solar glory. The only borders are on our maps, and maybe in our hearts; I do not see dividing lines drawn across the surface of the Earth, only a landscape longing for relief. Relax, lie back, and share the attitude of the accommodating lawn. Forget the Fourth, fraught with history, past and future; we’ll just call this the beginning of Summer.