The Privilege of the Nimble Mind

Image courtesy US Mint Pressroom Image Library

The American Revolution dwarfs all other concerns now. In a few weeks I must teach the events, ideals, and people that shaped the first true democracy of our world. While enthusiastic, there is much I don't know, cannot fathom, and will undoubtedly miss this first time through the topic. 

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I'm often struck by how little I've retained from my early education, and how only now as I endeavor to teach a topic, do I truly internalize information. Age has provided me context and a better sense of time. Now that I'm older I can recognize motives and effects. As I stand before my class I sometimes wonder if they too will lose what I've worked so hard to share with them, just as I did years ago. 

Perhaps, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Children must only grow up to enjoy learning— what is learned is of far less consequence. No amount of fact, no collection of historical dates, no application of theorems will assist an adult who has had their imagination deadened and their sense of self-worth consumed by apathy. 

Liberty is the privilege of the nimble mind and receptive heart. 

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I've been enthralled with a book from 1976 entitled Liberty Book. It is the work of an illustrator of immeasurable talent named Leonard Everett Fisher. Within his introduction Fisher quotes John Adams:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children the right to study painting, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

Adams understood that the proliferation of the arts was the final stage of an educated and peaceful republic. The Athens of Pericles provided not only a respite from warfare, but a flowering of ideas and creativity that continues to shape the culture of the Western World. It was the promise of peace, a true and lasting peace that nurtured aesthetic and philosophical inquiry, which guided our forefathers into war with the British. 

I wonder now about how we honor their dream, and whether or not we are capable of the bravery required to offer our children a world of beautiful reason.

Duty and Context

Lincoln, Abraham; three-quarter-length, standing, ca. 1863 

Photographed by Mathew B. Brady 

Courtesy of the National Archives, photo no. 111-B-3656

Two hours later I emerge from the voter pamphlets with a completed ballot— all of the measures have been measured and my chosen ovals are completely filled in with a black pen. As usual, I'm a tad stupified as to exactly how some measures even make it to the ballot. I also harbor an underlying nervousness about such measures passing and wrecking havoc on our social services and/or state infrastructure. 

Nevertheless, I feel fortunate to live in a country enlightened enough to allow all of us a voice regarding government policy. As a somewhat biased educator I strongly believe that we must bend all our energies towards educating each successive generation about this privilege or it will be lost. Complacency is the first step towards authoritarianism and many signs point to the encouragement of complacency over education in America these past twenty five years. 

Perhaps voter turn-out for this election will be the first break in the chain of national complacency, and this break will help the populace feel empowered to renew our ownership of the democratic system. Owning the means for just government far outstrips the ownership of any material good or monetary amount. So while it's ironic that more people may turn out to vote because of their leaking pocketbook, it doesn't change the fact that this may foster a renewed recognition that the power for change lies within the will of the people.

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I have never witnessed an election that devoted so much time to referencing the past. Lincoln, Hoover, FDR, Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan have all been given their due and put in whatever context best suits candidate or party at the time. The fixation on Lincoln and FDR are perhaps the most telling, as they each speak directly to different stories of American struggle. 

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The most recent issue of the Smithsonian Magazine (November 2008) features an article entitled Election Day 1860 by Harold Holzer which outlines Lincoln's actions on the day of his election to the presidency. It is full of wonderful examples of voting procedures and campaign etiquette of the day. For example: stump speeches were seen as the resort of desperate and weak candidates, the vice president was chosen by party and not by the candidate himself, and to vote for oneself was a mark of immodesty. 

Lincoln is given his due as a witty and thoughtful candidate who recognizes the magnitude of his bid for president. Holzer alludes to Lincoln's understanding of what his presidency might entail. After all, on that day a portion of the states would not even allow his name on the ballots (which makes the issues of hanging chad in 2000 seem almost quaint in terms of voter rights) and partisan politics sowed such fear in the populace that all manner of rumors circulated the nation as election results began to come in. 

It's interesting to consider Lincoln's bid for the presidency in light of his famous "House Divided" speech just two years earlier. Without intention or malice Lincoln became the wedge that split that metaphorical house on 1860 and yet, one almost feels that it was within the destiny of the country to elect the man who would spark and subdue the most devastating ethical dilemma in American history.

Although the situation in America this coming November 4th isn't as openly volatile as the one facing the nation in 1860, who can say that it is any less important? It will be the job of history to make sense of our present— all we can do is vote.

Woohoo! Campaign Fun 2008

I suppose if you're a Republican presidential candidate following eight abysmal years of mismanagement by your own party in the Oval Office that it makes sense to align yourself as strongly as possible with the Republican president that preceded the current one. 

Of course. . . that won't work out too well because that Republican president had the same name as the standing president you're trying to distance yourself from (I think they might even be related). What is a radical new elderly maverick of the Republican party to do?

How about painting yourself as the embodiment of Ronald Reagan's legacy. After all, Reagan was the Godfather of trickle-down economic policy which clearly continues to work in our favor today. Why just this week my bank of ten years was seized by the government, which will undoubtedly result in an immediate trickling-down of my retirement investments. 

There's really nothing bad that can be said about Reagan now that he's passed on to a better place. During his presidency supply-side economics took off, lobbyists began their ascension to political power, and all the top-40 radio stations had at least one peppy New Wave single on their playlists. I think the only down side that I can remember to the 80's might have been watching my middle class parents struggle to make ends meet while "naively" working public service jobs when everyone else was investing in Wall Street. But the plight of the average family is so Main Street. . .

Let me turn my attention to something else instead. Like Jim Lehrer's flaccid moderation of tonight's presidential candidate debate. Is my memory faulty or didn't there used to be some structure to the way speakers were allowed to address each other's comments? Since when does a moderator insist upon the candidates jumping down each other's throats? Why was foreign policy so heavily covered when the country is in the midst of the greatest financial debacle of decades? Not to trivialize foreign policy, but foreign policy is really only an issue for countries that are still countries, and if the bottom continues to fall out of our financial system we may not really need a president who is all that hip to the intricacies of border skirmishes in Afghanistan. It takes all the willpower I have right now to not bring up a certain Jeffersonian inaugural address from 1801 that, had we any sense of our own history, might have prevented a great deal of our woes these past fifty years.

Timberline

I’ve often been told that Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. In fact, this was a common conversation thread throughout my years at Portland’s one and only craft college. It would begin with my telling a stranger I was getting a degree in craft.

There would be silence.

Then there could be a range of clunky questions seeking clarification, or there would be the question about Timberline.

“No.” I’d say, “I have not visited Timberline. Yet.”
And that would inadvertently derail that conversation.

After being an Oregonian for over a decade I finally wandered through Timberline Lodge. It contains many remarkable evidences of hand work; with the wrought iron hardware and massive hewn beams being the standouts. Over one doorway I spied a butterfly tenon larger than both my fists put together. Carved rams support chunky oak slab table tops and telephone pole beams are cut short and topped with friendly carved animals. A handmade cohesiveness provides harmony as well as quirky surprises on each floor of the lodge. In one side hallway I came across a simple wooden bench with protruding iron handles on one side and a single heavy metal wheel on the other so that the bench could be wheeled about if a new location was desired. I could not find another one. This singular bench made me wonder when we might again build buildings that would be erected to not just serve a function to the public but would also honor the ingenuity of a hand laborer.

As I see it, Timberline’s crafted beauty isn’t nearly as important as the sentiment that wrought it. In the bleakest of times for America a president saw fit to think outside of advisors, analysts, and political tradition to empower the impoverished. Among the hundreds of people working to fashion Timberline there were many who discovered previously hidden talents and were awarded not just a check, but with the feeling that their labor mattered. Simply stated, the New Deal valued its citizenry and unlocked their potential.

Critics of FDR’s plan proselytized the end of capitalism with the advent of the New Deal but I think of it as a very heart felt attempt to counteract an international crisis of economy and the subsequent feelings of worthlessness that it engendered.

Ultimately, government should not be just a gnarled web of mandates and bureaucracy; it should inspire and support the dreams of its populace. As a democratic population we should not allow our government to operate solely as a short-sided arm of disaster relief for the victims of its own inefficiency. FDR was not the primary culprit of a national economic downturn and many of his solutions to it live on today— can we have much faith that our current president will leave us with a similar legacy?

*Feeling it imprudent to take a camera on the slopes I turned to Flickr for an image. Fellow photographer Sherri Jackson graciously provided the picture above. It manages to capture not just the fantastic scale of the woodwork and masonry, but also reveals a bit of the impeccably considered lighting that exists throughout the lodge. Much thanks to Sherri.