I suspect that, for anyone under the age of forty, finding the significance in Ted Kennedy's death will be less a direct experience than the received wisdom of two generations of older folks: those like my mother who are of Kennedy's generation; and liberals of the baby boom, the ones who truly canonized "the Kennedy mystique" into some sort of religious fervor.
The latter, especially, probably deserve their moment to elevate Kennedy's life and work and celebrate what was best about him. He is one of the longest serving US Senators ever. He crafted significant pieces of legislation. He carried on his family's traditions of service to the community. He was, most certainly, a defender of the basic ideas of liberal thinking at a time when those principles - helping the less fortunate, believing in government, finding equality and justice for all - were under attack and in decline. For all of this, and more, he deserves to be remembered as a great man.
But that is not all of who he was, and it was never the whole story. More than his brothers, or sisters, Ted Kennedy embodied the tensions of the storyline that elevated the Kennedy clan into American royalty: too much, too soon, the good and virtuous living side by side with the failures and the excesses... and all so very, very Catholic.
It's hard - very hard - now to remember the barriers that Catholics, and the Irish, had to face in society. How much resistance there was, really, to John Kennedy, as a Catholic, running for President (the first, we should recall, Catholic President - and, actually, the only one so far). That was Ted Kennedy's experience, the world he helped to change. And it is yes, within living memory. But for a younger generation... that story is going to seem awfully far away, and that kind of discrimination - between and among white ethnic groups, between Catholic and Protestant - has been relegated to the low end of perceived outrages. For those who lived it... I doubt it ever became less significant.
I prefer a more holistic kind of memory, one that embraces the person as he or she was, flaws and all, mistakes and successes. Ted Kennedy wasn't a monster... but by the same token, his greatness as a legislator should be tempered by remembering his failings - certainly Chappaquiddick, probably his role in the Palm Beach rape case, and the messy personal distractions. It was all part of who he was, and all of it impacted a national, larger than life story, in all its complexity.
Without the temperance of his flaws, it's too easy to overstate who Ted Kennedy was, what he did, why it mattered... and to still compare him, unfavorably, to the greatness of his brothers. Beyond that, it remains too easy to deify the Camelot fantasy of the American left, which really serves no useful purpose anymore, if it ever did. For Ted Kennedy, perpetuating that storyline both elevated the left wing and also undermined it; "the legacy of the Kennedys" was his mantle and his burden. The dream never dies. The person does, and did. And the myth of the Kennedys... probably should. Seeing Ted Kennedy for who he actually was - and what he wasn't - does him the best service, by preserving his humanity.... and lifting him from the shadow of his siblings to let him be seen for himself, good and bad, flaws and all. He deserves that, and the chance to rest in peace.
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