What do you get for a 47th anniversary?
I'm sure there's a Hallmark list out there somewhere, but I'm mostly being facetious; my point is... we don't generally concern ourselves with "anniversaries" that don't end in 5 or 0. And even then, we're probably being a bit excessive with our cultural addiction to mindless counting.
My larger point is that up until a few weeks ago, maybe, no one particularly cared that Glenn Beck was going to be part of a rally at the Lincoln Memorial which, as it turns out, happened to coincide with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King giving his "I Have A Dream" speech at the same place.
Coincidence? Probably not. But unlike many who seem to be convinced the apocalypse is at hand - including many of Beck's fans, one might note - I tend to think the lesson from yesterday's gathering was mostly that collective assemblages on the Mall in DC are kind of silly. We like to think that America is a culture overwhelmed by mass opinions, run by the will of crowds, all too familiar with the tyranny of the majority.
The reality, I tend to suspect, is that in America we tend to ignore just how not true any of that is - that the real proof of the amazing freedoms that we've created in this country (the freedoms we are convinced will evaporate before our eyes at any moment), is just how little power the majority, or the crowd, has over any one of us. Nowhere, really, offers a place for the anarchist separatist quite like some out of the way spot in some forgotten corner of an American city. And nowhere else is that lonely separatist likely to find a bunch of others, free from intrusion or harassment by the outside world.
Let your freak flag fly, I say.
I'm sure there's a Hallmark list out there somewhere, but I'm mostly being facetious; my point is... we don't generally concern ourselves with "anniversaries" that don't end in 5 or 0. And even then, we're probably being a bit excessive with our cultural addiction to mindless counting.
My larger point is that up until a few weeks ago, maybe, no one particularly cared that Glenn Beck was going to be part of a rally at the Lincoln Memorial which, as it turns out, happened to coincide with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King giving his "I Have A Dream" speech at the same place.
Coincidence? Probably not. But unlike many who seem to be convinced the apocalypse is at hand - including many of Beck's fans, one might note - I tend to think the lesson from yesterday's gathering was mostly that collective assemblages on the Mall in DC are kind of silly. We like to think that America is a culture overwhelmed by mass opinions, run by the will of crowds, all too familiar with the tyranny of the majority.
The reality, I tend to suspect, is that in America we tend to ignore just how not true any of that is - that the real proof of the amazing freedoms that we've created in this country (the freedoms we are convinced will evaporate before our eyes at any moment), is just how little power the majority, or the crowd, has over any one of us. Nowhere, really, offers a place for the anarchist separatist quite like some out of the way spot in some forgotten corner of an American city. And nowhere else is that lonely separatist likely to find a bunch of others, free from intrusion or harassment by the outside world.
Let your freak flag fly, I say.
Saturday's rally - or march... or whatever it was... what was it anyway? - was in many ways just one of the larger freak flag raisings in the country, and not much else. A kind of conservative counterculture Woodstock, for families and older shut-ins. Beck's big rally struck me as being something of a dud, especially given Beck's momentous "Language of change" speechifying in the run-up to it. Blink, and you easily missed the massed crowds, the dull speeches, and the fairly overtly religious exhortations that tend make going to church somewhat tedious.
The long term effect of Beck's rally strikes me as about the same as the rest of Tea Party moments - I think it's great that people are finding a place to belong, to find people who share similar ideas... but all the calls to change and growth don't amount to much in the way of practical action. That was also true about much of what we like to remember as the activist sixties, where a lot of Baby Boomers like to wax nostalgic that they found a sense of generational identification and direction... but mostly amounted to little more than moments of mass gathering, with few tangible results...except possibly some radio exposure for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
It's worth remembering that the struggle for Civil Rights in this country didn't start or end 47 years ago, that Martin Luther King, for all his wonderful qualities as an orator and activist, was also neither the be-all or end-all of Civil Rights action. The power of "I Have A Dream" lies really in the quality of the writing, and the strength of the delivery, combined with the historical sense that it all happened at the right moment in time and in a place - the Lincoln Memorial - meant to signify the extended length of the struggle for black equality. And it's easy, too easy really, to say that the Beck rally trampled on these important ideas... the real failure of Beck's moment on the national stage of the Memorial was more complete than simply being disrespectful to the memory of the Civil Rights struggle... it was that his "movement" in no way equalled the King moment.
Beck's moment had none of the qualities of King's historic appearance - the remarkably pedestrian quality of the oratory, the lack of a defining moment, never mind the failure to tap into some sense of a historical purpose... all of these failings made the day less than the sum of its parts. It would be nice if we were nice to each other. We need to start with ourselves. Soldiers are brave and good. These are not challenging ideas; they are the boilerplate of American cliches, the wallpaper of our emotional and cultural lives. It was as if Beck decided to run a Tea Party event to remove the anger... except anger, really, is all that binds his disparate collection of folks who tend to feel, collectively, that they are powerless in the face of larger forces beyond their control.
Beck himself would argue - and has for much of this year - that what he wants is to tell the powerless that they have the power... but that really, doesn't guarantee that people will continue to look at, or follow, him. Spend some significant time listening to Beck and his puerile hectoring on debatable historical evaluations of the early days of America, and it becomes clear that inspiring people to action is less his goal than reinforcing stasis - we live in a country of amazing possibilities... isn't it terrible that others are trying to take those possibilities away from you?
Well, sure, but taking action doesn't require all the moving parts Beck seems eager to attach to it... do something. Get involved. Turn off the TV and get out in the world. And maybe, in a few months we'll be surprised by what this past Saturday's started. But I tend to doubt it. I think the main result will be that, come Monday, Beck will be back in his place on Fox, telling us that the rally was a wonderful moment... but not enough. Of course it wasn't. The kind of change we need right now isn't something that needs tedious speeches. It needs action, organizing, purpose... and less romancing our history, and more making the next chapter of it.
The long term effect of Beck's rally strikes me as about the same as the rest of Tea Party moments - I think it's great that people are finding a place to belong, to find people who share similar ideas... but all the calls to change and growth don't amount to much in the way of practical action. That was also true about much of what we like to remember as the activist sixties, where a lot of Baby Boomers like to wax nostalgic that they found a sense of generational identification and direction... but mostly amounted to little more than moments of mass gathering, with few tangible results...except possibly some radio exposure for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
It's worth remembering that the struggle for Civil Rights in this country didn't start or end 47 years ago, that Martin Luther King, for all his wonderful qualities as an orator and activist, was also neither the be-all or end-all of Civil Rights action. The power of "I Have A Dream" lies really in the quality of the writing, and the strength of the delivery, combined with the historical sense that it all happened at the right moment in time and in a place - the Lincoln Memorial - meant to signify the extended length of the struggle for black equality. And it's easy, too easy really, to say that the Beck rally trampled on these important ideas... the real failure of Beck's moment on the national stage of the Memorial was more complete than simply being disrespectful to the memory of the Civil Rights struggle... it was that his "movement" in no way equalled the King moment.
Beck's moment had none of the qualities of King's historic appearance - the remarkably pedestrian quality of the oratory, the lack of a defining moment, never mind the failure to tap into some sense of a historical purpose... all of these failings made the day less than the sum of its parts. It would be nice if we were nice to each other. We need to start with ourselves. Soldiers are brave and good. These are not challenging ideas; they are the boilerplate of American cliches, the wallpaper of our emotional and cultural lives. It was as if Beck decided to run a Tea Party event to remove the anger... except anger, really, is all that binds his disparate collection of folks who tend to feel, collectively, that they are powerless in the face of larger forces beyond their control.
Beck himself would argue - and has for much of this year - that what he wants is to tell the powerless that they have the power... but that really, doesn't guarantee that people will continue to look at, or follow, him. Spend some significant time listening to Beck and his puerile hectoring on debatable historical evaluations of the early days of America, and it becomes clear that inspiring people to action is less his goal than reinforcing stasis - we live in a country of amazing possibilities... isn't it terrible that others are trying to take those possibilities away from you?
Well, sure, but taking action doesn't require all the moving parts Beck seems eager to attach to it... do something. Get involved. Turn off the TV and get out in the world. And maybe, in a few months we'll be surprised by what this past Saturday's started. But I tend to doubt it. I think the main result will be that, come Monday, Beck will be back in his place on Fox, telling us that the rally was a wonderful moment... but not enough. Of course it wasn't. The kind of change we need right now isn't something that needs tedious speeches. It needs action, organizing, purpose... and less romancing our history, and more making the next chapter of it.
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