America the Beautiful

The Norman Transcript

March 10, 2007 12:16 am

— For The Transcript

Music with its immediate appeal to emotions is a powerful but subtle conveyer of aspirations and convictions.
When intending to honor the nation those pieces of music we select should be chosen with careful attention.
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is almost unsingable, and worse it is a battle hymn not an anthem. "America the
Beautiful" is both better music and poetry and it is a true national anthem expressing sentiments of praise,
devotion and patriotism. Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote this song, composed an anthem that readily reaches
the hearts of those who truly cherish the nation. She extols its wide and spacious skies, its vast waves of grain,
its majestic mountains and its fruited plains. And in honoring the nation asks Divine grace on such a blessing.
But if we bring critical intelligence and not just emotions to our judgments about the nation, then America has
lost some of its beauty. For commercial reasons we despoil the land; for political power as well as financial
ambitions we corrupt our government; and for reasons of anxiety and selfishness we seem willing to debase
some of our social institutions, even our churches.
Although America has never been perfect and its people have exhibited an uneven temper down through the
years, its present state of disorganization and aggressive stance seem to have reached a hazardous level.
Lincoln's sense of forgiveness and FDR's idea of the good neighbor seem lost to America in the 21st century.
We appear to define democracy as any political arrangement assuring corporate profits and promoting the
status and power of the financial elite. Our ethical sensitivity seems blunted, our judgment seems blemished
by fear, and our religious sense of compassion is sometimes eroded by apprehension.
The depth and seriousness of our problems are obscured by their complexity as well as by fear and avidity.
For example, education which Americans view as a Golden Door to the future has become a tangle of
confusion, a battle ground for the conservative-clerical minded versus the scientific minded. Its goals are ill-
defined; its curriculum is often an intellectual scramble; and its clientele too frequently reluctant. The entire
enterprise is dominated by a capricious bureaucratic Titan -- commercialized "amateur" athletics. University
executives don't rein it in for fear of losing their jobs; faculty members don't stand against it, for like the
alumni, they derive a vicarious sense of power from it; and students are too immature to know when they are
being exploited. True, the Titan brings a welcome periodic "surge" to the business community, but the beauty
of America fades a bit in the shuffle.
Additionally, we are burdened with a circular dilemma. Education forms culture and culture forms education.
This latter is the principal path for cultivating civilized and democratic spirited men and women. But our
education is the product of a society that is economically and socially focused on the lowest common
denominator -- money and pleasure. Making money has become our highest good; pleasure is our alluring
Lorelei. How then can we devise thought-provoking education in a society that is focused on shallow and
limited values?
Reading is a superior cultural road map, especially if we are following first-rate and provocative minds.
Aristotle in his reflective "Politics" said "the legislator should make the education of youth his chief and
foremost concern." John Dewey in his noteworthy book "Reconstruction in Philosophy" said "No amount of
desire to make money ... could have effected the ... transformation of the last few centuries ... mathematics,
physical, chemical and biological science were prerequisites." Drawing from these and similar minds should
help us construct the intellectual tools necessary to break out of this self-defeating social-educational merry-
go-round, and thereby assure the quality and enhance the grace of our nation.
The beauty of America was initially a free gift of nature. Our political freedom was a free gift from our
brilliant founding fathers. But the extent to which we really care is questionable. Over the decades we have
been ravishing nature and degrading our society for pleasure and for profit. We cover acres of topsoil with
asphalt while population and demand for food grow. We waste water greening lawns, filling swimming pools
and washing cars. Our cavalier innocence is nowhere better revealed than the effort of Texas to buy water
from Oklahoma. Looking at all this down the long corridor of history reduces our world to a clutter.
Geography is an indispensable science; economics is a valuable intellectual discipline. But politically both
geography and economics become fairy tales if through manipulation of law and the shameless shenanigans
of politics the "dust bowl" must quench the thirst of the "desert!" Equally shocking is our waste of petroleum
and our ruthless efforts to assure a continuing supply by calling on the army. Consider the scandal of millions
of cars sitting at red lights with motors running or struggling to make it to a football game, or to the gaming
house, or the auto races, or just "shopping." Think of the millions of kilowatt hours wasted on Christmas
lights or tons of paper coming from trees cut to assure advertising. Few things could be more short-sighted
than cutting down trees that foresters estimate have been growing since pre-Christian times. Our Puritan
ancestors had a keen sense of reality when they said "wear it out, use it up and don't waste it."
Neither the influx of Latinos, nor Moslems, nor the "communists" are the cause of America's fading beauty.
We "red-blooded patriots" are besmirching America ourselves. Even a superficial glance at our behavior is
troubling. Theft, murder, child neglect, illegitimate births and thousands of deaths with cars discredit the
nation. "Enronism" -- the theory and practice of exploiting investors and milking corporations under the guise
of economic growth -- is a dishonorable chapter in American economic history. Government scandal is too
frequent. We kill more people with guns than any other nation in the world. We cannot control emigration or
drugs. In the latter case we are the consumers motivated by self-indulgence.
Psychologically and intellectually we live with a violent contradiction between verbally and ritualistically
affirmed ethics and our actual behavior. This is especially evident as we profess to be a Christian nation and
yet fail to live by the moral principles of the historic faith. We pridefully affirm our economic power is a
product of free enterprise ignoring the fact that our economy is subsidized by government military spending.
Termination of this subsidy would produce an economic collapse. Perhaps an accurate summary of these
bedevilments -- and there are others -- is to note that neglect of reality automatically generates problems.
Yahweh of the Jews, Allah of the Moslems and the Lord of the Christians have all been overshadowed by the
gods of Mammon and Mars -- the gods of riches and war. And in the process many faithful followers seem to
have forgotten the wisdom of the ancient adage: those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. So under
the circumstances, is it unreasonable to suggest that we put our house in order before presuming to instruct the
world? This seems a likely path to peace and to the preservation of America's beauty.
Lloyd Williams is a retired educator. His column runs monthly in The Transcript.

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