AMERICA
What is America? Is it just a capitalistic enterprise feeding off the Earth, consuming more than its share of energy and goods? Is it just a stew of peoples from all over the Earth, a conglomeration that swelters in a jangle of languages and ethnicities, a jungle of classes and gangs, a jumble of successes and failures? I think America is hard to define, classify, and comprehend. A difficult specimen to pin to a board, America is hard to type because its changing shape and values make it a transformer nation. I think America is an ongoing project, an experiment in democracy that transforms with each new generation.
Walt Whitman, that seer and poet, wrote a five-part poem called “As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free,” in which he attempts, although he denies it, to define America. In his first stanza of part one he sets up a vision of an entity in climbing motion, a soaring flight, free as a bird released from the Earth.
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AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. (Whitman, 1900)
In the second and third stanzas, Whitman emphasizes that America is a break from the old and an adventure into the new with wonderful possibilities.
The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library;
But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie,
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or Florida’s glades,
With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound,
And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for thee—real, and sane, and large as these and thee;
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought;
Thought of Man justified—blended with God:
Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality!
Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea! (Whitman, 1900)
Whitman understands that the result of America’s grand experiment opens many routes the democracy can take, but he is hopeful that it will promote a civilization closer to heaven than hell. Agreeing with Whitman, Dinesh D’Souza writes, “That [American] human being – confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future-oriented – is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile, fatalistic and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced.” (Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, July 07, 2002)
In part two of his poem, Whitman asks what the task is that America has taken on. Whitman was born into a world of Native Americans mixed with transplants from Europe—primarily Spanish, English, French and Dutch—and Africa: slaves. In his lifetime, he saw the country further transformed by the end of slavery and an influx of Irish and Germans and Chinese. The persona of his poem believes the task is to create a new world different from the old one that it broke from, despite containing parts of the old in its culture.
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Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!
To formulate the Modern.....Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,
Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art,
(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?)
By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.
(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain!
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long!
Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest it;
It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee;
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee,
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.) (Whitman, 1900)
The poet and prophet suggests that America is like a baby born from the old to become something different. Remember that during his time, America was continually moving westward, breeching frontier after frontier as new states were added to the country. His ideation adds to the idea of growing motion whose possibilities are endless, although he hopes for the best. Thomas Jefferson, a founding father, reiterates that hope: “It is a part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate; to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.” (Jefferson, 1807)
In the one stanza of part three, Whitman conceives of America as a ship (still an object in motion) and urges America to look to its helm because not only its future but also the future of the world depends on its progress as if it were the lead ship in a flotilla of nations. He is anticipating that American will take a leading role in the world and others will follow its lead, a presentiment of World War One, The Great Depression, World War Two, and the Cold War in which America did take the lead and transformed the Earth in the 20th century. Of that generation, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Once I prophesied that this generation of Americans had a rendezvous with destiny. That prophecy now comes true. To us much is given; more is expected. This generation will nobly save or mainly lose the last best hope of earth. The way is plain, peaceful, generous and just. A way, which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” (Roosevelt, Franklin, January 4, 1939)
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Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy!
Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee!
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone;
Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is steadied by thy spars;
With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee;
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the other continents;
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant:
—Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great companions,
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee. (Whitman, 1900)
Whitman’s belief in the possibilities of this new kind of national organization called democracy in the form of a republic is almost spiritual and he prophecies a powerful future, although he claims he cannot know whether the future will hold good or evil, as in part four of his poem. He foreshadows the evils of organized crime, monopolies, heartlessly exploitative corporations, the groupthink of governments organized around biases, and racial and ethnic prejudice. He foresees the good of technology: electricity whose principles were organized by Benjamin Franklin, both a founding father, a successful businessman, and a scientist; and subsequently electronics; the gift and the curse of the automobile from Henry Ford; the gift and the curse of personalized computers and the Internet. He sees a future in which men and women are equal as we admit the possibility of every human.
His final images are still moving, America as a cloud and then as a sun that lights up the world in new ways.
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Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes,
Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky;
Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons;
Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,
Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life;
World of the Real! world of the twain in one!
World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by it alone;
Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials,
By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent,
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here,
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,)
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee;
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past;
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe;
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now!
I merely thee ejaculate!
Thee in thy future;
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring spirit;
Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all;
Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity!
(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the mind of man,
The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;)
Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike, forever equal;)
Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain;
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and civilization must remain in vain;)
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely,
Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself, equal to any, divine as any;
Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers;
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure foundations tied,)
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love, and godlike aspiration,
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal bards—kosmic savans,
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy. (Whitman, 1900)
In the five stanzas of the final part of his poem, Whitman says he knows that the journey America has embarked upon will not be trouble-free; storms will come—wars and catastrophes worse than war—but America will overcome them all. Moreover, it is these struggles that will strengthen us. Helen Keller affirms such by stating, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” (Keller, Wisdomquotes.com) Theodore Roosevelt would concur as he does in this famous statement: “The credit belongs to the man [and woman] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself [or herself] in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he [or she] fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his [or her] place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” (Roosevelt, Theodore, April 23, 1910)
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Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee;
Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself;
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
(Lo! where arise three peerless stars,
To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.)
Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith!
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d;
The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is, boldly laid bare,
Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.
Not for success alone;
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always;
The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee all over;
(Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials;
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;)
In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt swelter;
The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within;
Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic:
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee;
While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing,
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,)
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind,
The Soul—its destinies.
The Soul, its destinies—the real real,
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)
In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies;
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;)
Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!
The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such unparallel’d flight as thine,
The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee. (Whitman, 1900)
America is a movement, never complete, never finished, like the sculpture of an artist who is never satisfied and continues tweaking his masterpiece. America continues to be the hope of the Earth—a civilization freed from the chains of authoritarians, whether they be kings, tyrants, imams, dictators, corporations, or ideologies—a hope that is constantly changing, adjusting and adapting to new realities, but always rife with possibilities.
References
Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. (July 07, 2002). What's So Great About America by Dinesh D'Souza. Retrieved from http://www.ashbrook.org/books/0895261537.html
Jefferson, Thomas. (1807). It is part of the American character. . . . Letter to Count Diodati. quotes.net. Retrieved from http://www.quotes.net/quote/8103
Keller, Helen. (2009) Character cannot be developed. . . . Wisdomquotes.com. Retrieved from http://www.wisdomquotes.com/002206.html
Roosevelt, Franklin. (January 4, 1939). This generation. . . . Annual Address to the Congress. Ibiblio.org. Retrieved from http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/7-2-188/188-11.html
Roosevelt, Theodore. (April 23, 1910). Citizenship in a republic. Speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Theodoreroosevelt.org. Retrieved from http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/quotes.htm
Whitman, Walt. (1900). As a strong bird on pinions free. Leaves of Grass. Bartleby.com. Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/142/248.html
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