the writings of Ginsberg and Whitman leads one to
wonder if it is possible to write an “epic” poem
about America anymore…
I have made it clear that my concern is not about America at large,
but about our own individual understanding of who we are and
what is our possibilities and I stand by those concerns but I have
been forced to consider the state of America as defined by those
two writers…
America was a growing and dynamic country in the 1850’s when
Whitman began his “Leaves of Grass”. The industrial revolution
was about to explode upon the American scene and change the
country forever whereas Ginsberg writing a 100 years later, found
a completely different country…
America by the 1950’s had gone though multiple wars, the Civil war
and both World Wars and the Great Depression…and industrial
revolution had completely change America……
but it wasn’t the external changes that had changed, it was
the internal changes… the way we saw ourselves and
the individual role each of us play within the larger society
we call America. Whitman saw a positive America and
Ginsberg saw a negative America and each was right…
and now 60 years after Ginsberg, what do we see?
I see something that neither Whitman or Ginsberg saw…
I see a country that is living in fear…
we have lost our way and it frightens us… driven us to
elect fear mongers like IQ45…….driven us to attack the
very principles that made America the once shining city on a hill…
we have sold out our values and principles and honor in some
failed attempt to alleviate our fears…
Whitman was building our values and Ginsberg question those
values and today, we have abandon those values……
now some might say that the values of Whitman which
are the values Whitman worship… are not values we cannot
live by anymore, perhaps, perhaps…
and the values that Ginsberg questioned have been abandoned
but why? today, today we worship Mammon and all that
is implied in that worship…and fear has driven us to adopt
that ism and ideology…today we are not the brave, bold
fearless people of Whitman era…
we have fears and those fears lead us to demonize others and
their values…for it takes courage to allow others just to be
themselves and for them to follow their own road and ism’s
and ideologies…for tolerance is about the strength to allow
others to be themselves… for if we are secure in the
truth and strength of our values, we have no need to
attack or demonize other people, other values…if one is secure,
really secure in one’s values, then you have no problem in allowing
others their understanding of the world…tolerance is about having
the strength to allow others to be… fear is attacking others because
our faith in our values isn’t strong enough to allow dissent…
and this new America where we don’t have the faith or
courage to allow others their views, is a America of fear,
a America that doesn’t have values of strength or courage enough
to others to be…….
but all this begs the question, how do we overcome fear?
How do we become the values we proclaim ourselves to be?
How do we stop being afraid and start living and allowing others
to just be?
the strength to overcome fear is tough to find, but
not impossible and how does it begin?
I am strong enough to allow values that I don’t believe
in or approve of… we begin by trusting our values
and allowing them to be challenged by other values…
for example, those who spend their time attacking
Sharia laws, pretending that Sharia laws are here in America
in parts of some city…lie not from strength but lie from
weakness and doubt…… a truly brave person, a courageous person
doesn’t need to lie about these things… because so what?
if you have the strength of your beliefs, the strength of your
values, then what do you care about other people values or beliefs?
a brave person has the courage of their convictions and needs
not worry about others…that strength is on display in Whitman…
he has enough strength of convictions that he doesn’t need to attack
others values, other beliefs……He simply celebrates the courage of his
convictions and the convictions of his fellow American’s…whereas
Ginsberg questioned those convictions of Whitman, but offered no
values to replace the questioned values…and today, we live in fear
of those whose convictions are held more deeply then our convictions…
so how do we rise above fear and celebrate the courage of our convictions?
Kropotkin