They Almost Stole the Bicentennial

Democracy is maintained, not by science, but by art: which is to say that it derives more from the spirit of play than from the rigid imperatives of moral, social, economic, and political five-year plans. It is, in fact, a paradox of democracy that, while it depends for its survival upon eternal vigilance, it is weakened by an excess of the kind of priggish self-consciousness which requires of it that it be regularly adding up its moral debits and assets, laying out in its diaries every New Year its resolutions for moral and institutional reform, and hiring professors to devise guidelines to ensure that such reforms are carried out and swamis to monitor the collective consciousness in its progress toward a greater and more malleable civic humility. That the Republic has survived the operations of this Higher Consciousness, that it remains at the conclusion of its first two centuries full of high animal spirits and the juice of careless human cussedness, is, given the notable victories won by the high-minded clerisy over the years, a miraculous thing. And paradigmatic of that miracle is the triumphant Bicentennial observance, which for many months bade fair to succumb to the natural meddlesomeness of that clerisy, who have always found something intolerably vulgar in the visceral and spontaneous celebration of what unabashedly Is.

“To recall [July 4, 1776],” wrote Bill Moyers in Newsweek a year ago, “is not, I hope, to indulge in chauvinism.” In the ensuing twelve months it was widely concluded that mere recollection of that date is not, in itself, chauvinistic, but that the line between recollection and celebration—which is chauvinistic—is indeed a gossamer one, to be crossed only by the brash and the morally obtuse: the clerisy found it offensive that a people so besmirched by three and a half centuries of violent and antisocial behavior should indulge in so much as a single day’s worth of prideful orgy. A Methodist bishop, writing in a United Methodist manual designed to point out the moral dangers of Bicentennial jollies, warned that, the while advance festivities proceeded, “minority groups continue to suffer indignity and oppression; welfare programs pauperize and humiliate the poor; fiscal policies framed on Wall Street and in Washington continue to give tax breaks to the undeserving, guarantee exorbitant profits for the unprincipled [The] taxpayer is forced to worship at the shrine of the gods of war and provide military arms for all sides of virtually every conflict in and around the world.” While few educators and editorial writers read Methodist pamphlets, the Social Gospel has always made strange bedfellows, and the bishop’s indictment was typical of the enlightened wisdom brought to bear upon the question: Should we celebrate the Bicentennial at all?

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Democracy is maintained, not by science, but by art: which is to say that it derives more from the spirit of play than from the rigid imperatives of moral, social, economic, and political five-year plans. It is, in fact, a paradox of democracy that, while it depends for its survival upon eternal vigilance, it is weakened by an excess of the kind of priggish self-consciousness which requires of it that it be regularly adding up its moral debits and assets, laying out in its diaries every New Year its resolutions for moral and institutional reform, and hiring professors to devise guidelines to ensure that such reforms are carried out and swamis to monitor the collective consciousness in its progress toward a greater and more malleable civic humility. That the Republic has survived the operations of this Higher Consciousness, that it remains at the conclusion of its first two centuries full of high animal spirits and the juice of careless human cussedness, is, given the notable victories won by the high-minded clerisy over the years, a miraculous thing. And paradigmatic of that miracle is the triumphant Bicentennial observance, which for many months bade fair to succumb to the natural meddlesomeness of that clerisy, who have always found something intolerably vulgar in the visceral and spontaneous celebration of what unabashedly Is.

“To recall [July 4, 1776],” wrote Bill Moyers in Newsweek a year ago, “is not, I hope, to indulge in chauvinism.” In the ensuing twelve months it was widely concluded that mere recollection of that date is not, in itself, chauvinistic, but that the line between recollection and celebration—which is chauvinistic—is indeed a gossamer one, to be crossed only by the brash and the morally obtuse: the clerisy found it offensive that a people so besmirched by three and a half centuries of violent and antisocial behavior should indulge in so much as a single day’s worth of prideful orgy. A Methodist bishop, writing in a United Methodist manual designed to point out the moral dangers of Bicentennial jollies, warned that, the while advance festivities proceeded, “minority groups continue to suffer indignity and oppression; welfare programs pauperize and humiliate the poor; fiscal policies framed on Wall Street and in Washington continue to give tax breaks to the undeserving, guarantee exorbitant profits for the unprincipled [The] taxpayer is forced to worship at the shrine of the gods of war and provide military arms for all sides of virtually every conflict in and around the world.” While few educators and editorial writers read Methodist pamphlets, the Social Gospel has always made strange bedfellows, and the bishop’s indictment was typical of the enlightened wisdom brought to bear upon the question: Should we celebrate the Bicentennial at all?