By Edwin Cooney
In my pre 1941 column message last week, I wrote that once we were attacked by Japan, even the isolationists united behind Franklin Roosevelt throughout the war effort. It wasn't that everyone was happy with every priority or act of the Roosevelt administration — in fact, there were a number of very serious controversies during the war — but over all, there was substantial unity compared to future crises. Then I asked if such a unity could happen in today's crisis. Next I said I'd leave it to you to decide for yourself. However, the topic is too delicious to leave alone. So, although I'll hold off from expressing my conclusion, I'll give you some ammunition to consider in reaching your own.
One of the biggest sins we students of history are guilty of when assessing our national history is that we judge our past using today's mores. Although this tendency is not only understandable and perhaps, to a degree, even necessary, it can distort the reality of the conditions of the past in which our ancestors lived. The fact of the matter is, however sad that may be, the world each generation lives through is new to them.
Painful as this may be to even consider let alone contemplate and even though we're still officially the United States of America, some will conclude that we are way less united than we once were. Okay, fair enough, but the next question is: what elements in a nation's body politic are the strongest unifiers?
Between 1776 and 1781, the Revolutionary War era, the country as a whole was united around the idea that it was time to get control of its own destiny rather than being controlled by Great Britain. (When I was in school, my teachers called Great Britain or England “the mother country.") Just five years following independence, civic leaders from all former thirteen colonies came to realize that the continent was in danger of becoming like Europe if the separate states continued competing with one another. Britain, France, and Spain still had areas of heavy influence in such places as Canada, New England, Florida, and the Louisiana territories. Even after the nation was united under the federal union, Texas was largely developed by nearby Mexico and might have remained separate from us had the Catholic Church in Mexico not started banning slavery. (Note that slave owners had to remain free to enslave blacks, didn't they? Likewise, Indian fighters also had to be free to slaughter Indians!) Thus, the right to govern themselves (what Jefferson called "the disease of liberty”) ultimately united America. In order to do that, national and state leaders had to begin to make room for regional differences and create a governing body that could best allow for regional preferences. Invariably the “us" as opposed to “them” (that is, America compared to the rest of the world) tightened that national bond of unity.
The crisis through which we are passing could become either a great uniter or a permanent divider. There's evidence supporting both sets of possibilities. Before addressing some of the forces that may affect both positive and negative possibilities, here is just a word about what things were like in 1941 and throughout the rest of "World War Twice" as one comedian once called it.
Back in 1941, although comparatively few Americans had a college degree, their president was a graduate of Harvard and had a law degree from Columbia. Besides that, his cousin Teddy had also been president. Americans, for the most part, were as awed by the presidency as they were by teachers, preachers, policeman, doctors, singers, actors, sports stars, and practically everyone of achievement. In 1941, Americans were comparatively unsophisticated for the most part and even innocent in comparison to today's average citizen. FDR and almost every other would-be president was more privileged, better financed and educated than that day’s average citizen. Even more, America has experienced through a growing media what leadership is all about. The struggle over civil rights and Vietnam, Communism, Watergate, the savings and loan-gate, Bubba-gate, Iran and Iraq-gate, and a black man's presidency have all altered the outlook of a much more independent-minded and suspicious national constituency.
Another factor, as I see it, is that we're constantly being pandered to not only as political constituencies, but as "valued customers" of manufacturers, service providers, and auto and insurance companies. All these entities pander to our pride, our prejudices, our health and our hopes for the future.
We expect to be taken care of more than those who were members of Tom Brokaw’s "greatest generation." Nor is it a question of government protection. Both liberals and conservatives expect their food to be inspected and thereby eatable and their homes to be prevented from burning by local taxpayer-funded government. Many of them also depend on Social Security payments. People expect these days to be protected from other people's loudness, crudeness and rudeness, religious prejudice, secondhand smoke, and even people's sexism and general insensitivity in the workplace.
As for politics, America is vastly different from what it was back on Sunday, December 7th, 1941. We used to elect presidents we thought would do something to improve our economic and social lives. Now, we'll settle for a president who simply identifies with our fears and resentments. All of this, of course, is conditional on our physical, psychological, and spiritual safety and sense of security which is dependent on how much control we believe we have over our lives. The rich usually feel more secure than the poor because money, at least on the surface, serves unconditionally — provided, of course, that money is both sound and reasonably managed. The less money you have, the more you need to depend on the good fortune and generosity of society. The crisis we are passing through is, without a doubt, going to bring about a massive attitudinal adjustment. Some of that will be more constructive than we can currently imagine while other aspects of that adjustments may well be negative for a generation or two.
Consider the following: will social distancing become a habit? If it does, what will that do to our restaurant, hotel, and travel businesses? How will that alter sports and recreation? Will the need for a national healthcare system become more or less apparent? If the virus ravages through the states that have resisted social distancing, might that alter people's expectations about government? Is this crisis more likely to bind us together or separate us? Are Americans likely to become more or less insular, more or less arrogant in comparison to the rest of the world?
The next question is, what causes a people to unite as opposed to divide? How might we become a more united people than we currently are?
Well, there is our empathy for the pain and loneliness of others. There's certainly a large market for the medicines or the treatments that may keep us from getting so sick again! Due largely to technology, there is the possibility of us once again becoming a nation of shopkeepers as "merry old England" once was before industrialization! Every shift in society has its growing pains. Before industrialization, no one ever thought of Marxism or even socialism.
In our lifetimes, we have lived reasonably content, reasonably prosperous, and reasonably happy in the United States of America. Most of us have studied American history, the story of our founding fathers, pioneers, civil war soldiers and citizens, current day husbands, wives, laborers, bankers, and merchants all under a constitution most of us have never bothered to read, let alone understand. Hence, now that we're undoubtedly in a national crisis, the question rears its ugly head: "What is it that unites us?"
If you're a conservative, there are too many liberals. If you're a liberal, it’s the other way around. If you're poor or black, there are too many rich whites! If you're a solid citizen, there are too many immigrants anxious to eat your tax money and crowd your schools, highways and city — to say nothing about your neighborhood! If there's too much of the world in America, can America reasonably escape the rest of the world?
Is it wise, or even right, that America united eighty years ago in the last really frightening crisis? Or was it merely inevitable? Was that unity a surface unity or a genuine one?
Can Humpty Dumpty be put back together again? Should it be put back together again just as it once was or should it be put together substantially differently than it was up until founder James Madison's 149th birthday on Monday, March 16th, 2020?
What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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