Old Book, Thoughts Still Relevant

 

In 1943 Alexander Woollcott wrote a piece called “For Us, the Living,” which was subsequently republished in Clifton Fadiman’s Fireside Reader in 1961. Fadiman wrote a 272-word introduction in his reader to Woollcott’s piece. Woollcott’s essay follows, and after it appears Lincoln’s 272-word Gettysburg Address, the subject of Woollcott’s essay. 

Fadiman's reader includes, its flyleaf informs us, passages from “great novels, gripping suspense yarns, fascinating accounts of historical incidents, inspiring stories of human achievement, humorous essays,” and “light poetry.” It would have to be in the light of historical incident that “For Us, the Living” is included in the book. Woollcott quotes some of the scathing reviews of Lincoln’s speech that were published in days following November 19, 1863. The president remarks were called “silly” (by The Patriot and Union of Harrisburg, PA); “silly, flat and dish-watery” (by the Chicago Times); and “dull and commonplace” (by the American correspondent for the London Times). Woollcott agrees with history that the audience at Gettysburg was “quite unimpressed,” but he speculates that Lincoln was not really speaking to the 15,000 present that day (who had already stood through a seemingly interminable 2-hour-long oration by Edward Everett) when he gave his own two-minute speech.

Lincoln, Woollcott notes, was an experienced public speaker and knew very well how to engage an audience, and if he did not begin with the usual settling-in preliminaries but went immediately to his point, Woollcott says, that could not have been an accident. The writer in 1943 is certain of his interpretation of the historic event:

Have these words, for example, at any time since they were first spoken, ever had such painful immediacy as they have seemed to have in our own anxious era? Yes, he was talking to you and to me. Of this there is no real question in my mind. The only question—in an age when beggars on horseback the world around are challenging all that Lincoln had and was—the only question is whether we will listen . . . It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here. . . .

For whom was this speech meant? Why, the answer is in his own words. For us. For us, the living. For us to resolve and see to it—that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Have those words not even more painful immediacy for Americans now, in 2025, than they had in the era of World War II, when freedom-loving countries of the world, included these United States, were united against fascist aggressors? 

Blame is no cure for pain.

There is so much pain in the world! Some of it is unavoidable, obviously. We are embodied and mortal, prey to sorrows and afflictions of the flesh, and nature can be disastrous, and if we don't die young, we get old, and that isn't easy. Life is a heart-breaker in so many ways at the same time that it is the gift that makes all other gifts possible. But must we make it harder on ourselves and each other?

Our nature as animals who speak and imagine and live in time is to personify the world. We see the sun and rain as benevolent, destructive storms as malicious. A forest may appear either as friendly or dangerous, depending on experience and knowledge. Ancient Greeks explicitly named gods of wind and sea and land, gods endowed with all the petty vanities and jealousies and angers of the human beings who invented them. 

The stimulus of pain—“I am hurt!”—triggers an almost automatic response in many people: “Who is to blame?” We want to identify a responsible other, then to inflict pain on that other, as if hurting someone else will ease our own pain, somehow “even out” the score and erase the hurt done to us. It doesn’t work, but when it comes to hurt and blame, the most modern, educated human beings revert to primitive feelings, the human brainstem remaining—necessarily—as active as it ever was. Sometimes we identify a specific human being as the one who hurt us, but often that isn’t possible, so we look for a group or people or agency and make them into villains. 

Ironically, one person’s villain is often another person’s angel, because each of us has only our own experiences, no one else’s. Each of us has only our own pain, our own losses, no one else’s. Designs to help can fail to meet everyone’s needs. Even people who love us may occasionally let us down, and a person with the best intentions cannot foresee all consequences.

All that is hard to accept because we want justice. People who don’t deserve to die — they die! It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair, but it’s life. 

The biggest problem with blaming and scapegoating is that it not only fails to erase hurt: it spreads it further. Blame and revenge are as contagious as plague. 

Now some would say—and one or two have said—that my identifying the current president of our country as the blamer-in-chief is blaming him, and isn’t that exactly what I’m saying we shouldn’t do? If I’m truly tolerant, they imply, I would tolerate intolerance. No. That is a road I refuse to go down. 

Harry Truman said, taking full responsibility for the high office he occupied, “The buck stops here.” People going into politics knows at the start that not everything they say or do will be popular and that their words and deeds will be criticized. Criticism goes with the job. Taking criticism is part of the job. Name-calling, vilifying your opposition, attempting to silence critics, blaming others for your failures, on the other hand — none of that is part of the job.

This president has tarnished the reputation of our country around the world. He is doing everything possible to destroy our “Fourth Estate,” the free press,  because honest journalists refuse to be his parrots. He is purging government of experts and career professionals and replacing them with parrots loyal only to him. He is “firing” judges whenever he can, if they hand down verdicts he doesn’t like (replacing them whenever possible with parrots). He is deporting people who are legally in our country and threatening to strip citizens of their citizenship. 

HE, the PRESIDENT, is doing all these things. Do you not think these offenses are a thousand times worse than King George III’s tax on tea?

THE BUCK STOPS IN THE OVAL OFFICE.

For Crying Out Loud!

When confronted with the character flaws of the person she supported for president in the 2024 election, one person I know replied that we are all sinners, all flawed. Equally flawed? Does character not matter then in elected officials? Do past acts committed not matter? Then anyone might as well be considered “qualified,” and we might as well draw names at random to fill government offices. Why bother with campaigns and voting? 

Several months into the administration led by one of us flawed sinners, we now have unidentified men, masked and armed, abducting people off the streets in the name of the United States government and transporting them to prisons and/or detention facilities without due process. We are told that these men must be masked to protect their identities because threats have been made against their lives. By this logic, state governors, members of Congress, governors of states, judges in courtrooms, journalists—there is no end to the people whose identities should be hidden because threats have been made against their lives! 

People who go into law enforcement or into the military choose careers that involve risk. If we are to know and trust them, we need to know who they are. We need to be able to see them--as fellow human beings. And they need to see others as fellow human beings, also. Do they? 

A friend retired from law enforcement downstate says he cannot imagine how the public would have reacted if he and fellow police officers had initiated traffic stops wearing face masks rather than badges. A certain public person objecting to the new practice (and sorry, I can’t remember who it was) said the ICE officers looked as if they were setting out to rob liquor stores. Sure does! And it makes sense that people doing that want to hide their faces. 

Bank robberies, liquor store robberies, etc. are “traditionally” performed with faces hidden. Are these government employees and their bosses all too well aware that they are the serious law-breakers?

"Look what they're doing!"

What are the current aims of the administration in our nation's capital, and what was your first clue? How about this? Anything you hear them accusing their opposition of doing is exactly what they are doing.

"Rig" an Election? The 2020 election was run and won fair and square, but can the same be said of the 2024 election? Certain remarks made by the president raise doubts. "Rigged" if you lose, not if you win? Hmmm....

"Weaponize"? Yep, that's just what the current administration and its Congressional supporters are doing. An impartial justice system, one that would punish those who break the law, is not what those determined to abolish laws desire. Hence the epidemic of "firings" (purging would be a more accurate term) of long-time government employees loyal to the Constitution and the laws of the land. 

"Witch hunt"? Again, yes! Those petulant whining and cryings from the White House about "witch hunts" are another instance of accusing your opposition of exactly what you are doing. Ever criticize the current president? Ever disagree with him on anything? And if you are a Democrat--well, that speaks for itself! "Out with the witches!" is the Republican yell today.

[Note: Republicans, not Conservatives. It is not conservative to undermine the rule of law and abandon the nation's ideals.]

"Hate"? No, the opposition to the administration does not "hate" America! Far from it! We love our country and its ideals, and if we hate anything it is the current authoritarian agenda that is dragging us into the mud and would throw those ideals out the window. But just listen to the spewing from the hater-in-chief! Accusing, blaming, name-calling. Plenty of hate in that quarter.

The psychological term for accusing the other guy of what you yourself are doing is projection. In the world of psychology, the finger-pointer is not consciously aware of what he is doing, but can the same be said of Republican finger-pointers today? In a few cases, perhaps, but I am more inclined to think it is, in general, a very conscious, intentional strategy, a pre-emptive move designed precisely to put the opposition on the defensive. I guess you might call it smart. I call it evil.

Reminder Found in a Book

 

How I See It Today

👀

 

Two things: 

 

(1)       The latest Supreme Court ruling. Okay, my idea is that depriving those born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents should be retroactive through the generations, making descendants of those landing on the Mayflower, who were not citizens (there wasn’t even a United States then) also noncitizens. Even Native Americans (since there was no U.S.) would not be U.S. citizens today. The only true “Americans” would be naturalized citizens, i.e., those who had learned enough civics to pass an exam—which would pretty much empty out the White House and many state capitol buildings. Voting lines would be way shorter, too. A friend I floated this idea past asked if naturalization could also be retroactive, and I told her I haven’t worked out all the details. In fact, I am unlikely to bother. This is, after all, in case you haven’t guessed, what philosophers call a ‘reductio,’ short for reductio ad absurdum. How would such a small number of naturalized Americans get along with groups of indigenous Americans, say the People of the Three Fires? Maybe better than the historical track record thus far.

 

(2)       On a completely unrelated topic, the older of my two credit cards recently had its credit limit drastically lowered. The reason given (I could appeal but won’t bother) is that I “have not been using” enough of my credit available. In other words, I am not deep enough in debt to be worthy of as much available credit as they thought for years I should have. In fact, I pay off my balance every month, so I am not building debt and not making the company any money. But in my not-so-humble opinion, the company’s thinking is short-sighted, because if I were ever desperate enough to max out my available credit, there is no way I’d be able to pay it back at the end of the month, and they would have me hooked. Now that hook, should it ever be set (God forbid!) will net them much less than it might have otherwise.

 

Your thoughts? 

Explanation (NOT POLITICAL!) For My Friend

Or, Still Stage-Struck After All These Years

Last night I texted a friend out West that I am currently obsessed with “The Phantom of the Opera” (which I also mentioned in my recent “Books in Northport” post). She texted back that she never saw the show, doesn’t know the story line or setting, and is not crazy in general about drama, though she did acknowledge that the music and costumes and set in the link I sent her (“The Music of the Night”) were beautiful. 

 

My friend and the rest of you, I have never seen the show, either! I’ve never seen a performance of anything in the old Opera in Paris (but I have been inside the front doors to see the staircase and have seen photo images and one filmed performance from the more modern Opera de la Bastille; the opera part of the post comes after the livestock auction part). Until I began listening to the musical numbers in order, however, I had no more of the story line than you! And yes, opera is dramatic.

 

I didn’t care at all for opera when I was young, though my parents both loved it and had many long-playing vinyl 78rpm recordings of opera. But I loved music. And the stage—I fell in love with the stage at age 14 when (on the first date I had with the boy driving rather than one of his his parents) I saw my first live production. The play, not a musical, was “The Curious Savage,” with high school students playing the parts, and when the final curtain came down I did not want to leave my seat. I was stage-struck!

 

Luckily, I played violin in the high school orchestra, so for four years it was my good fortune to be in the pit orchestra for every rehearsal and every performance of each year's high school “operetta,” as we called it. The first, my freshman year, was “Show Boat.” Well before the last performance was over, I knew all the lines and lyrics by heart, and of course I never wanted that show to be over! The student who sang Paul Robeson’s “Ol’ Man River” was, for me, the star, and it is his performance I remember best, but the entire production was incredibly thrilling—and I was a part of it! A very modest, practically invisible part, but I have never forgotten it, and it still gives me shivers. 

 

There were other operettas and other stage plays, and in some of the plays I was onstage, most notably as the old gypsy woman in “Camino Real,” by Tennessee Williams, a production our high school took up through various contest levels, competing with other high school thespians, eventually to win first in state. That did it! I dreamed of New York and studying theatre and going on the live stage. But sic transit all that, and so I’ll cut ahead in time here….

 

(Opera still had not grabbed me.)

 

I sang blues in a club for a while and, in a different time period, earlier, studied voice with a private teacher, but time was slipping away, and I was studying philosophy and at the same time turning to quieter, more pastoral dreams. Then one day, making my bed out in an old farmhouse in Barry County, listening to the radio, I was stopped in my tracks and had to sit down to listen to the famous duet from “The Pearl Fishers.” Really! That was opera? Maybe I was ready to appreciate it.

 

So there are the pieces: stage-struck at age 14, four years in the pit orchestra, a role in my senior year in a play that went right to the top in our state competition, singing in a nightclub in Kalamazoo, hearing a duet that captured my heart, and finally seeing a Paris production on film, on a big screen, in Willcox, Arizona. No, there was more than that: there was a family holiday trip to Chicago for the stage version of “Camelot,” a school trip for “Oliver!” There was also our family participation in church choir, and there were my mother and sisters and I singing while we did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. You see the influences. I could go on and add more. In general, though, music and stage, stage and music. 

 

Neither music nor the stage became my life after a certain point, but our past never completely vanishes, and I hope my heart is never so cold, soul never so dead that I do not thrill to passionate and dramatic songs from the best of my country’s composers and lyricists. Here are a few more numbers, in addition to those linked in paragraphs above, that give me goosebumps.

 

“All I Ask of You”

“The Impossible Dream”

“West Side Story” --the whole show!

(I can’t choose only one number.)

Another whole show: "Fiddler on the Roof"

I would love to see “Wicked,” but I could not put it ahead of seeing and hearing, on a live stage, “The Phantom of the Opera”--if I could survive the experience!