In the novel White Noise, two characters go to visit a barn advertised as the most photographed barn in America. While there, among dozens of other tourists snapping their cameras, they realized how they've become a part of a spectacle.
"'Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism.'"
Driving to Boston recently, I realized how much I associate this trip with going to Red Sox games, despite the fact that I haven’t been to a game since my kids were born. My dad took me and my brother every summer when we were kids, often enough that the majority of the times in my life that I traveled on this highway have been during trips to watch the Red Sox play.
I began to think about how my grandfather took my dad and his brother, as well, when they were kids. It made me sad that I’ve never continued this tradition and taken my son. But why should I even care?
As my wife and I walked through the city, I was not only connected to the memories of walking these same streets as a youth, following the crowd to Fenway Park under the bright Citco sign, but also the idea that my dad and his dad walked these very same streets years before I was born.
My grandfather’s parents were Irish immigrants, much like the founding and current culture of Boston, right down to the local professional basketball team’s logo. Fenway Park is over 100 years old, so there is a century-worth of Irish Americans who sat in those seats, cheering for the Red Sox.
I am a part of that tradition, and something about knowing that creates a feeling of transcendence. Or like Delillo wrote, a collective perception, a spiritual surrender.
Timeless Raindrops
In 2004 the Red Sox traded away their star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra. At his press conference, he was open about the fact that he did not want to be traded. The unusually tall left field wall was the recipient of many Nomar line drives. He noted that the line drives of dozens of players in Red Sox history have left impressions on that wall and he liked knowing that he had left many of his own. He became a part of the spectacle.
The book, and movie, A River Runs Through It, ends with the following line:
The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
The narrator is referencing the Blackfoot River and how to fish in the river is to be in the presence of the memory of hundreds of now-deceased fishermen, and to be aware of the hundreds who will fish it after he is gone. And while their names might not literally be on the rocks, unlike the baseball impressions that are literally on the Fenway Park's Green Monster, the point is that you can transcend yourself a little bit if you just let the idea sit with you.
Something Bigger
These thoughts had an effect on me. They made me feel that this trip, this city, made me a part of something bigger than myself, a larger pattern of people that I belonged to. Was I doing what I was supposed to be doing? Had I strayed too far from that pattern to still be a part of it? If so, what have I become a part of? Am I untethered to anything larger than myself? And why do I feel like not everyone asks themselves these questions.
I’ll never forget moving to Virginia in my 20s and the first time I heard the argument that the Civil War was about state’s rights and not slavery. The people who got dressed up and reenacted Civil War battles seemed silly to me until I began to think about my trips to Boston. What does it mean to be the descendants of a people so connected to your geographic area?
I think it orients oneself in the direction of wanting to continue that pattern and finding pride in it. Which helps me understand the cognitive dissonance of replacing slavery with state’s rights; they want to continue to be a part of a pattern but they want it to be something good.
The more I look, the more I see this intergenerational pattern-finding. Jonathan Haidt connected truth-seeking higher education back to Plato's concept of the academy, saying we (ie professors) are a part of that great tradition. In the 1619 Project's lead essay, Nikole Hannah Jones connected being an American descendant of slavery to being a part of the great tradition of African Americans who literally built the country.
In the movie Spanglish, a Mexican American mother pulls her daughter out of a fancy private school because she is worried her daughter is losing the family-centric cultural traditions of Mexico and she wants her to be a part of that pattern. It's the same reason an Italian grandmother passes on her famous family meatball recipe, so her grandchildren can continue to be a part of that pattern dating back to the old country.
I think the reason that adding culturally responsive pedagogy to a school's curriculum has a positive impact on the grades and graduation rates of racialized students is that they begin to see themselves as being part of the larger pattern of America's story, rather than as an outsider.
Self Deception
What if I discovered that the Irish immigrants to Massachusetts were evil? What would that do to my sense of self? Would I accept it and move on? Or would I find any reason to change the narrative and reframe it in a way I could still be proud of?
I think this is the crux of contemporary America’s relationship to its past. This is what makes teaching history so difficult; it is so hard to disentangle it from identity.
In Euphoria, there is a scene in which Rue is talking to Lexi about Rue's father's death. Rue says, "I used to hate when people told me he died for a reason. But what I think they mean, is that you have to give it one."
I think that for many people there comes a time when you look to the intergenerational pattern which you are a part of, to understand how you got to be where you are. And you might have to confront some things you don't like about that pattern. And you have to give it a reason why.
The problem is that your history teacher isn't equipped to help you navigate this. And I actually think dealing with this should take precedence over learning historical facts. Ok, maybe I really don't believe that but I almost do.
Grounding your identity in a lie, like the states' rights southerners, doesn't seem like a great cope. But neither does grounding your identity in shame. But that's the thing, the people who do not identify with intergenerational patterns don't feel shame when they look at our country's history and see all the negatives. They see it as the reason we need to change who we are today in hopes of finding something they can be proud of. In fact, when they look back at their own childhood, I don't think they feel much nostalgia.
Something Worth Conserving
John Wood Jr. said he is a conservative because he wants to conserve certain values. It is one of the defining characteristics of the ideology, although progressives usually associate it with wanting to conserve things like heterosexual marriage, segregation, and stay-at-home wives. I don't consider myself a conservative but I do feel the same way about certain things, like watching the Red Sox.
I grew up in the same house that my mother was raised in. It was my grandmother’s house, the same place she raised my mom and her sister. Years later, after I was living on my own with my own family, my grandmother died and the property was transferred to my mom and her sister. They sold the house to someone and, at least for my mother, it was an emotionless transaction.
That was several years ago. I still drive by that old house and a part of me is bothered that someone who is not from our family lives there. We are cut off from continuing that pattern, something I'd prefer to preserve but I understand my mom doesn't feel the same way.
I had a colleague who worked in higher education philanthropy. He told me that, when soliciting alumni, he noticed a pattern. The alumni who were all business as students, and parlayed that hard work into a successful career, were often unlikely to donate because they feel they didn't owe the school anything. However, the alumni who placed equal emphasis on class time as social time (were known to attend the occasional kegger, etc., etc.) were often more than happy to give back.
Some alumni donate so their alma mater can innovate and stay on the cutting edge of technology. But most just had a really good time as students and want to ensure the next generation does as well. In other words, they are like John Wood Jr., they want to conserve that aspect of their life. They also see themselves as part of a intergenerational pattern of alumni who had a similar experience and they want that pattern to continue.
Some people look to our past and only see the bad parts—exploitative capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy—nothing worth conserving. It is worth noting that many of these people want to radically change contemporary society. Capitalism out, socialism is in. Goodbye meritocracy, hello antiracism and equity.
In a New York Times op-ed, a progressive activist father describes the type of education he wants for his children.
“My kids are now 12 and 15. As they progress through adolescence and become even more attuned to the politics and culture of their nation, I want their schools to play the appropriate role in shaping them to be participating citizens of a diverse democracy. That means teaching an expansive version of American history and instilling in them a sense of responsibility to help make the next chapter more just and inclusive. Citizenship is not a spectator sport.”
There is nothing wrong with this view, but it's clearly the language of activism; it starts with the assumption that society must change. Nowhere does he mention identifying what is good about American history and how to conserve it, which isn't necessarily a better lens for education but one which speaks to half of our country.
Indeed, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is a selection of all the worst things our country has done. It should come as no surprise that Zinn is a socialist.
And I'm in an odd space because there are many things I want to conserve but there are also things I want to change. And I at least get why people feel the way they do.
I think the teaching and learning of history is inseparable from one's morality. Maybe it needs a space apart from education, where people can sort into their own communities, their own patterns, rather than a legislative war over which version of history to teach and which to ban.
America's Pasttime
My oldest son isn’t into sports, and maybe he never will be. Maybe he’ll never like baseball. And I have to be okay with that. But I don't know that he might one day become interested in his roots and find something worth conserving. And I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a parent if I didn’t help him find a way to identify with an intergenerational pattern that is larger than himself, which I think is one of life’s truly exhilarating moments.
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