Rugged Individualists

One of the hallmarks of America is our mythical pride in individualism.  We tout so-called "self-made millionaires" and those who "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."  We profess freedoms at the expense of others and consider ourselves "exceptional."

Interestingly enough, Herbert Hoover cited America's "rugged individualism" in his closing campaign speech in 1928.  By contrasting American principles with European "doctrines of paternalism and state socialism," he heralded the American way of self-reliance and limited government, portending his disastrous handling of the Great Depression.  His failure to authorize the federal government to help ordinary Americans made a terrible situation worse.

So what happens, almost 100 years later, when another crisis collides with American individualism, a new disease that's communal in nature?  A disease that puts my life in the hands of others, even those I don't know and those who choose not to wash their hands or wear masks or distance themselves.

We get protest signs like these:

"Give me liberty or give me COVID-19"
"Sacrifice the weak"
"Tyranny is Spreading Faster than the China Virus"

And we get behavior like these:

Stormed state capitols
Heckled health care workers
Gun-toting intimidators

To make matters worse, our president encourages these attitudes, inciting anger and protests.  He clearly values the rights of the individual--as he pushes states to re-open--over the collective health of Americans.  In tweeting states to "LIBERATE," he implicitly instructs Americans to disregard their responsibility to each other and look out only for themselves.  It's a selfish way forward.

Donald Trump, like Herbert Hoover, gets it wrong.  Echoing his predecessor who vetoed major aid legislation in 1930 by saying it would "bring far more distress than it will cure," Trump said in March that "we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself."  For in the case of COVID-19 the cure means a collective response, a shared responsibility for each other's lives.

Such responsibility confounds Donald Trump.  I'm not sure he knows what it means.  But without it, we lose people unnecessarily.  Fellow Americans.  Human lives. 

What could be more important?

Rediscovering Pearl Buck

Having finished this weekend another novel by Pearl Buck, Peony, I've come to appreciate the author's observations about human nature. Her honesty stands out. Here her narrator comments about David, a young man who struggles with his feelings for the women he loves, including his mother and the family's bondmaid:

"He longed to be free of them all, and yet he knew that no man is ever free of the women who have made him what he is. He sighed and tossed and wished for the day when he could return to the shops and the men there who had nothing to do with his heart and his soul."

Here Ezra, David's father, reflects on the melancholy surrounding his Chinese Rabbi:

"He had chosen sorrow, the endless sorrow of a man haunted by God. He had even transmuted such sorrow into strange dark joy. He was most happy when he suffered most deeply, like the moth that flutters near the flame of the candle."

Finally, my favorite. On David's wedding day, the mothers of the bride and groom meet for the first time:

". . .each found the other strange and hard to talk with, and yet each was determined to do her best. . . [Madame Kung] granted that Madame Ezra tried very much to be pleasant to her, and although the day was tedious for these two ladies, somehow it passed." Emphasis mine. How many times have I been in situations where somehow the day passed?

Pearl Buck's voice is refreshing. Though her Chinese settings are exotic, the emotions of her characters are not. She's as relevant today as she was decades ago.

Those Enchanted Evenings

Sitting in a room of older adults at The Forest at Duke--most of them 80 years and over--we listened to Sam, the music instructor, play the piano. As usual, he ended his weekly session on music appreciation with a show tunes sing-a-long. A resident requested "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific.

As some of the residents sang and others nodded their heads and still others seemed asleep, the collective memories of hundreds of enchanted evenings took over the room. Lives nearly over, passions long gone but not forgotten.

For a brief moment, feelings of love and loss rendered everything else meaningless.