178 years ago this week, a European traveler on tour between New York and Philadelphia made some observations about the American experiment that not only captured a moment in our national development, but did so in a way that his essay continues to be required reading in American high schools and colleges throughout our great land.
This week, a European traveler on tour between Houston and Phoenix made some observations about the American experiment that not only contextualizes a moment in our national development, but did so in a way that his essay should be required reading in Congressional offices, high schools, and colleges throughout our great land.
Welcome to Morning Feature's Tuesday morning series: Things We Learned This Week (TWLTW). This week, Professor Crackpot Caractacus, while studiously paying attention during the weekly BPI poker game faculty meeting learned that the history of Europeans observing America and reporting their thoughts is alive and well and on the NYT's op-ed page.
Parallels
I confess that in America, I saw more than America. I saw the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress. -Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832
The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them. -Bono, 2009
(I'm not saying that Bono is the reincarnation of de Tocqueville, as some have argued is the case with JKF and Lincoln. My only aim here is to share a few thoughts triggered by reading Bono's op-ed, thoughts that reminded me of Alexis de T.)
de Tocqueville was paid to visit America and study its penal system to glean ideas for improving the one back home in France. Bono was paid to come here to play music, sell records, and get up-close-and-personal with the culture that produced the blues and rock-n-roll, so he could return home with ideas for improving his own. de Tocqueville published Democracy in America, a legendary treatise on American political culture; Bono published MLK, Pride (In the Name of Love), Angel of Harlem, and When Love Comes to Town, legendary treatises on politics and culture in America.
de Tocqueville sat down with the last living signatory to the Declaration of Independence during his visit, as well as presidents, bankers, and frontiersmen. Bono, as we know, has also sat down with presidents, bankers, and frontiersmen of both American and other nationalities.
That de Tocqueville eloquently wrote about the weaknesses and strengths of this country, and that Bono did this two days ago, did not escape me either.
Critique and Construction
The very first page of de Tocqueville's masterpiece is a critique of American disinterest in philosophy.
Bono opens with an expletive. Or, at least, a reference to one.
He goes on to construct a reasoned and passionate defense of the recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Given that this statement comes from a man who has long been rumored to be a nominee, and for whom many observers was a more worthy nominee than the President, this is an interesting statement. And along the way, he redefines one of the most notorious phrases in American history with a shiny new patina of clarity and hope.
The Axis of Extremism
Bono names the "three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology, and extreme climate change" and rebrands them as the Axis of Extremism. Ironic, since his piece is titled "Rebranding America." I would argue that rebranding the "axis of evil" is a far greater service. He argues that the world is once again beginning to think of America as the place that "holds the keys to solving" global problems. Correctly defining the problem is far more important than correctly defining, or "rebranding," the problem solver(s). (Unless of course, the presumed problem solvers are the problem. Bono is too gracious to name names, but I'm not! Rove! Ailes! Cheney!) It's just my habit to look at these things from the opposite perspective than the one they're framed in.
For Bono,
The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, "Don't blow it."
Boy, did that one generate hundreds of comments on the NYT website by Sunday afternoon!
And yes, outside the Nobel Prize which hadn't been invented yet, and climate change, which at least hadn't been noticed yet, de Tocqueville did have some things to say about poverty and ideology. As for de Tocqueville's observations of the extremism of American ideology:
I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
[and]
Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
I will let that last one just speak for itself in case anyone from Foxy News, or G. Beck's production team, or the birther corporate masters have tuned in this morning. As for wealth disparity:
In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned [note that in 1831, "majority" meant White male property owners, not a simple mathematical quorum].
[and]
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. [Again, who are those who could have "vote[d] for a tax" in 1831? Oh, that's right. The same people who escape paying them today!]
The moment being contextualized here is when America drifted off into a sleepwalk where it began to believe in the infallibility of its own military and economic power. The election of Barack Obama, in one sense, signals an attempt to wake up from that self-destructive dream state. And that is important because what is self-destructive for America poses a pretty big problem for everyone else. What is constructive, what is hopeful, is that Bono and at least one retired American General agree that focusing American power on correctly defined problems will generate more correctly executed solutions. Addressing the underlying economic and political causes of threats like terrorism is what will destroy terrorism. Killing terrorists kills terrorists (and others) but doesn't destroy terrorism. In fact, it feeds it. Destroying the poverty and hopelessness that fuels terrorism is what will destroy terrorism. In other words, drop more and better hospitals, schools, and windmills but fewer bombs. In this sense, international and domestic policy are the same.
Intention and Pretention
Bono changed his name from the unremarkable Paul Hewson to a Latinized phrase for "Good Voice" (Bono Vox) when he was a teenager. He has never denied his own grandiose pretentiousness, and I would argue has reveled in it and relied on it to a certain extent in finding his own courage to create.
However, as to whether or not Bono in this essay displays an intentional claim to continuing the unique project begun by, and immortalized in, Alexis de T.'s writing, I will leave it to the reader to draw her or his own conclusions. I merely offer the following as food for that thought:
The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction. -Alexis de Tocqueville, 1830's
...let me just say it: Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world. Bono, Sunday
Those two passages are just similar enough for me to at least believe that Bono has read his de Tocqueville, and to make me wonder if he isn't intentionally referring to it.
And as for Alexis de T.'s own pretentiousness, this from a letter he wrote to his roommate and travel companion after visiting Baltimore:
There was, notably, one very interesting thing to be examined, to wit, the slavery which still exists there legally. On this point I made many observations which, to my mind, are not very favourable to the people to whom they apply; but all that will probably be published in the great work which is to immortalize me, and it's to that publication that I refer you to learn the rest. . . .
The more things change...
So here we are, 178 years in the shadow of a larger-than-life Frenchman who called upon the world to keep an eye on our new nation, wondering out loud if our potential would spell "fear or hope" for everyone else. And on Sunday, a larger-than-life Irishman asked and answered the same question. His answer for our time? For our moment?
He wrote,
...If the words signal action.
Indeed, Alexis de Bono. Indeed.
TWLTW
- Peter Paul Rubens was not only a master painter, but leveraged his artistic connections and reputation to broker a peace between England and Spain that ended a significant European war in the 17th century. Reading this short essay gives some different context and content to "arguing."
- There are 237 reasons why women have sex. Click the link to see how many of yours made the list!
- Pete Seeger's banjo is inscribed with the phrase, "This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender." Despite Glenn Beck's ravings Pete's version predates his as it was inspired by Woody Guthrie's guitar sticker, "This Machine Kills Fascists" which Pete noticed more than 60 years ago. When asked about it, Mr. Seeger said, "I wanted something a little more peaceful." Too bad Glenn Beck doesn't. I ask, what is your machine?
- Apple admitted this week a glitch in the programming of Snow Leopard that causes the deletion of the entire contents of a computer's home folder (music, documents, and pictures). Apple announced they were hurriedly wo *#@(3kin)#@g uh )#JF)L@# oh
- A child went up in a balloon. Oh no! Oh, no. A child did not go up in a balloon. His family set it up to look like he did, to drive interest in a reality show about the family. Now they're set up for 6 years in prison and the loss of custody of their children. That'll be the real reality show. Just not the one they thought they were writing.
- Benjamin Franklin created an alternative alphabet that eliminated such redundant letters as "c" and "y" and replaced them with 6 other letters that better captured the sounds of English required by blends and digraphs such as "gh." It went the way of his "National Bird Project," but serves to illustrate that creative people "buy low and sell high" in the marketplace of ideas. Except sometimes they just buy low. But, we should have known that anybody who'd stand out in an lightning storm with a key-bracelet is a bit of a risk-taker.
- Humans and chimpanzees have approximately the same number of hairs, from head to toe, but human hairs are more fine and shorter than those of the chimp.
What did you learn this week?