In his 1894 essay “True Americanism,” President Theodore Roosevelt argued that, though cosmopolitanism may philosophically be ideal, the age of its political viability would prove so remote and futuristic as to embrace such fantastic and bizarrely incomprehensible positions as “look[ing] down upon and disregard[ing] monogamic marriage.”
As fate would have it, scarcely a century later, we have managed to accomplish what Roosevelt believed would require two or three millennia. Indeed, one could hardly point to an instance which better captures both the acceleration and ambivalence of our supposed progress.
But facts are facts—and patriotism, like monogamous marriage, is now more questionable than ever. For a culture that recognizes dissent as the highest form of patriotism, patriotism itself, in its other instantiations, is often seen as an unforgivable form dissent. Our skeptical age justifiably demands that appeals to patriotic attachment go beyond the jaded and strangely complementary pitfalls of the jingoistic and soporific.
Patriotism worthy of the name must engage the heart and the mind simultaneously in a deep, mature and lasting way. “What so Proudly we Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech and Song,” a superb anthology edited by Professors Amy Kass, Leon Kass and Diana Schaub, takes up this challenge with considerable novelty and success.
Why short stories, speeches and songs? In one sense, the advantages of exploring the complicated themes of patriotic feeling and civic engagement through the well-selected stories, speeches (T. Roosevelt’s included) and songs of America’s brightest lights—from Hawthorne and Melville to Saul Bellow, Martin Luther King, Jr. to General George C. Patton, Francis Scott Key to Irving Berlin—seem obvious. In another sense, however, this approach provides an ingenious remedy to a peculiarly American difficulty.
Citizenship in America does not revolve primarily around blood, lineage or titled attachment to land. There is no “motherland” or “fatherland” to which one can appeal. Perhaps more so than for any other country, citizenship in America involves the acceptance of certain abstract ideals such as freedom, equality and rule by consent of the governed. At the same time, the inherent pragmatism of our democracy and the bustle of commercial life work against the deep consideration of the complexities of such abstractions. We are at once too universal and too particular. Short stories work as a formal corrective to this defect by situating the general themes and tensions of American citizenship within an engaging and complicating host of particulars.
The editors impressively provide substance worthy of form, and do more than justice to such gravid themes as race, immigration, law and order, bourgeois materialism, art, education and ultimate sacrifice. Henry James’ “Pandora” for instance, whose title and contents are rife with searching ambiguity, invites us to consider the promise and peril of the “self-made woman,” and, by extension, the tensions that underlie democratic choice and opportunity as such.
Some of the most enlightening entries come in the form of apt and often unexpected juxtapositions. Booker T. Washington’s “Democracy and Education” and W.E.B. Du Bois’ famous “Talented Tenth” offer radically different, though equally profound theories of education, the one advocating for a broad vocational and moral education for the many, and the other for an elite, traditional liberal arts education for the few. A careful study of these alternatives might seriously call into question the currently popular view of education, which, remarkably, dumbs down the college curriculum, all the while making it less useful, thereby combining the worst of both the utilitarian and elite perspectives.
Abraham Lincoln’s “Speech to a Young Men’s Lyceum,” which stresses the importance of obeying even bad laws, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stirring, though qualified, defense of civil obedience stand as an especially provocative pair in this time of sometimes violent and destructive protest movements. (How refreshing that we are spared the reflexive cheerleading that invariably accompanies King’s “I have a Dream” speech! King’s great mind is much better suited to critical engagement than rote deification.)
Upon completing this anthology one will inevitably have found much stronger support for one’s prejudices than one had before beginning; with equal certainty, one will also have found similarly rich support for the opposition, as well as for positions one had not considered before. That is to say, the effect here is more in deepening problems than providing solutions—in elevating, rather than ending debate. What the anthology does show, however, is that this deepening can take place within a wholly American (and democratic) context. In this way the anthology manages to be both patriotic and political without being partisan—indeed, in many ways, it is Tocqueville set to music.
Out of all the pertinent themes treated so well, however, one remains, in my eyes, conspicuously absent. “Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser … the very thought of losing is hateful to an American,” says General Patton. Indeed, one can’t help but wonder if American identity isn’t somehow inextricably connected with its grandiosity. To put it sharply, one wonders if there is a meaningful patriotism of descent.
I’ve said enough. The American Soul is a worthy match for the “silent artillery of time,” if there ever was one—“perhaps the unutterable midnights of the universe will have no power to daunt the color of this soul.” Never have I seen this color as hued and vivid as in this resplendent volume.
Darren Beattie is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in political science.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.