Articles

These are not the words of a man seeking to hide his head in the sand, to escape from reality by playing music while closing his eyes and ears to a violent world swirling around him. For art is not a peripheral, frivolous, or trivial activity. The drive to create and experience art is a central component of human existence, and the shared experiences brought about through art serve to bring us all closer together and promote deeper understanding of ourselves, one another, and the world around us.

Art expresses the universal by addressing the specific. Shakespeare gives us the vain Sir Andrew Aguecheek of Twelfth Night, and we laugh at him because we recognize our own weaknesses in him. When Hamlet questions the reasons for his existence, we are compelled to reflect upon the value of our own.

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa reminds us all how tenuous is our grasp on the thoughts and feelings of others; and when we study Picasso’s portrait of his mistress, we learn as much about the artist as about the subject, and become more aware of how our own perceptions are colored by our attitudes and preconceptions.

We experience the heights and depths of life’s joys and sorrows – and when Baryshnikov expresses them with a physicality the rest of us can only envy, we recognize them as our own.

Art reminds us that we are not alone in our experience of joy and grief, courage and fear, longing and disillusionment. As Arts Council England chief Peter Bazalgette writes, “Imagine society without the civilising influence of the arts... Take the collective memory from our museums; remove the bands from our schools and choirs from our communities; lose the empathetic plays and dance from our theatres or the books from our libraries; expunge our festivals, literature, and painting, and you're left with a society bereft of a national conversation … about its identity or anything else.”

As this year draws to a close, Bernstein’s words from November of 1963 remain as timely and insightful as ever. Fear and ignorance breed hatred and prejudice, leading to violence and vengeance. It is a truism that perpetuating this cycle of violence can never bring about its end; instead it must be broken. Breaking the cycle of violence is a daunting challenge, seemingly beyond the current capacity of our species; but each and every one of us can contribute to the cause by following Bernstein’s example.

Art expands horizons and unites humanity. Picasso once said that we are all artists as children, loving the creation and the experience of art, and the problem is to remain artists when we grow up. Be the artist you were born: tell stories, write poems, draw, paint, speak, sing, dance – find your unique way to share the workings of your heart with others, and learn what is in theirs. Seek out opportunities to experience art in unexpected ways, from unexpected sources, with an open mind. Reach out to promote deeper understanding of one another and of what it means to be a part of the whole of humanity. Find your art, whatever it is, and add beauty to the world today. Violence will not be ended tomorrow by your efforts; but you are an artist, and from tiny seeds grow mighty trees.

Willard, a painter of little renown, had given up pursuing a career as a fine artist and found some success as a wagon painter in a carriage shop in his home state of Ohio, where he greatly increased his employer’s sales by adding small paintings to the sides of wagons, attracting the attention of buyers.

Willard's grandfather had been a Revolutionary War soldier, Willard himself had served during the Civil War, and the spirit of patriotism ran deep in the family; so, when the opening of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia was approaching, Willard hoped to revisit his dreams of becoming a fine artist and create a patriotic painting that would be suitable for exhibition there. He began by painting a group of country musicians at a Fourth of July celebration, but was never satisfied with his efforts.

Then it occurred to Willard that he might inspire greater patriotic enthusiasm by placing his musicians on a battlefield rather than at the head of a parade, and he began to paint the picture which he at first called "Yankee Doodle," and later renamed "The Spirit of '76." His own father, a Baptist minister, was the model for the central drummer. Hugh Mosher, a nearby farmer who had served as a fifer throughout the Civil War, served as the model for the fife player in Willard’s painting. The young drummer was modeled after Henry Devereux, the son of General John Devereux, who had been in charge of all Union rail lines in Virginia during the Civil War and was then living and working in Cleveland.

To Willard’s great delight, the painting was accepted for exhibition at the Centennial Exposition, and while it was not (and has never been since) considered an artistic treasure, it created a sensation at the Exposition, stirring the hearts of all those who saw it, and there was immediate and overwhelming demand for copies.

Following the Exposition, the painting was brought on a nationwide tour from Boston to San Francisco, and was thronged about by wildly enthusiastic sell-out crowds everywhere it was shown, helping to heal a psychologically and economically depressed nation still struggling to recover from the effects of the Civil War. When the tour ended, General Devereux himself purchased the original (Willard painted a handful of variations, one of which now hangs in the Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room at the United States Department of State) and made a gift of it to his home town of Marblehead.

Today, we encounter the image printed on cards, calendars, and posters, in advertisements, and hanging on the walls of countless homes around the nation; and although it is hard for us to identify with the electrifying effect the image had on audiences in 1876, it remains a shining example of the power of art to inspire and influence. Over the years, despite a lack of critical acclaim within the fine art community, its depiction of the first three generations of Americans – still alive in recent memory, if not in flesh, for the many thousands of citizens who thrilled to it at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and on its triumphant national tour – has found its place in our culture as an enduring symbol of the strength of the American spirit, marching on despite adversity, down through the generations.

The story begins in the mid-1750s, when England was embroiled in the Seven Years’ War with France. Coalitions led by the two countries fought for dominance in Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and even the Philippines. In the US, we now refer to the portion of that struggle that took place in the Americas as the French and Indian War. With British forces stretched thin, American militias naturally joined the fray on behalf of the Empire, of which they were a part.

Colonial militias had originally been formed in the 1600s, to protect early colonists from the threat of unfriendly local Native Americans; but by the 1750s, with that threat virtually eliminated, the militias had become more social clubs than military units. Every few months, the men of a community would march about the town green for a while and then settle down to drink away the rest of the afternoon together (and perhaps the evening as well). Unsurprisingly, the highly trained and battle-hardened British troops felt little more than contempt for the American rabble that proposed to help them defeat the French.

While at Fort Crailo, near Albany, New York, where British and colonial forces were gathering for a massive assault on the French fort at Ticonderoga, a British army physician named Richard Shuckburgh witnessed the sloppy drill and appearance of colonial militiamen and was inspired to write verses ridiculing the ragtag New Englanders, setting his words to an old British folk tune. The idea quickly caught on among the British troops, who delighted in mocking their country cousins.

The verses known to every schoolchild, however, were almost certainly not written by Shuckburgh; they only appeared some 20 years later, when tensions between colonists and the Empire were approaching the breaking point, and still-disdainful British troops added new verses relevant to the situation at hand.

The origin of the word “Yankee” is not certain, but most linguists believe it derives from one of several mocking nicknames in Dutch. Whatever its origins, by the 1750s it already had come into common use as a derogatory label for American colonists. “Doodle” is believed to have come from the German word dödel, meaning “fool,” and lives on today as the word for mindless scribbling. A pony would have been considered by British soldiers of the time to be a short, stocky, inelegant beast – hardly the mode of transportation a gentleman would choose when traveling to London. “Macaroni” is a term derived from a practice of the day in which wealthy young British men would spend months, or even years, touring the European continent, gaining exposure to culture and high society. Some of these young men would return home sporting outlandish fashions, wigs, and mannerisms – and a taste for macaroni, a dish that was common in Italy but little known in England at the time. These young men eventually came to be referred to collectively as the “Macaroni Club,” and so the verse ridicules “Yankee Doodle” for being so ignorant and uncultured as to think that adding a simple feather to his cap would place him among the fashion elites.

The term “dandy,” in the middle and late 1700s, referred to any young British man who exhibited unmanly behavior. The final lines served as a reminder to the colonists that their country dances were less sophisticated than the dances then popular in English society.

In truth, many 18th-century American colonists did harbor feelings of cultural inferiority as compared to their cousins from across the Atlantic, and went to great lengths to surround themselves with objects and practices that they associated with a refined lifestyle. The stereotypical British obsession with tea and all its regular rituals and ceremonies, for example, was actually far more commonly found in the colonies than in England at the time.

However, that sense of inferiority began to dissipate following the French and Indian War, as the colonists became disillusioned with the vaunted British army (a disillusionment that no doubt was contributed to significantly by the British defeat at Ticonderoga in 1758 - when “Yankee Doodle” first appeared - despite a nearly 6-to-1 advantage over the French) and discontented with their own circumstances. They were forbidden by Parliament to settle in the very areas that they had helped England to secure from the French, to avoid any conflicts with Native Americans that might necessitate military assistance from the Crown; and taxes and trade restrictions were imposed from afar as England attempted to recover the costs of a lengthy war.

By 1775, the American colonists were on the brink of war with the mother country, and British troops began flowing into the colonies to quell dissent. The rest of that story is known, of course; but in the years since the French and Indian War, American colonists had come to embrace “Yankee Doodle” and make it their own, playfully mocking themselves and reveling in the developing image of the unaffected and plain-spoken Yankee, both unfamiliar with and uninterested in the fripperies of European society. While the British Redcoats frequently played the tune to mock the Colonial Army, the colonials themselves would play it with considerable glee following any defeat of the British, as a way of mocking their ostensibly superior foe.

As the Revolutionary War progressed, “Yankee Doodle” became the unofficial anthem of the scrappy underdog American forces; and when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown to end the war, the Colonial Army played a particularly rousing chorus of it that so infuriated the surrendering British troops that some of them smashed their weapons to pieces on the ground in a rage. A mere 25 years after Dr. Richard Shuckburgh first employed the tune to ridicule American militias as a disorganized rabble – within the span of a single generation – that rabble had risen up to defeat the fabled British Empire, forging a new and separate identity and destiny in the process; and the song itself had become a beloved symbol of defiance and national character that we continue to celebrate to this day.

There were criteria, naturally. To qualify for the program, the “Dreamers,” as they were called (a catchy name carried over from a previous program) had to have been brought to the US before their 16th birthday; they had to have lived continuously in the US for five years; they had to be still under the age of 30; and they had to be either in school, have already graduated high school (or earned a GED), or have served in the US Armed Forces or Coast Guard and been honorably discharged. Further, they could not have been convicted of any felonies or serious (or multiple) misdemeanors. In other words, this program was available only to productive, law-abiding members of society – high school students and graduates, servicemen and women – who had never meaningfully lived anywhere else. DACA recipients are required to pay taxes, and yet - contrary to deliberately inflammatory social media memes - they cannot receive federal benefits such as welfare and food stamps.

Applicants had to provide their names, work addresses, and their home addresses – even information on family members. For many of them, this meant putting their parents at risk of deportation. Being well acquainted with the kind of life in the shadows led by so many others, these productive members of society were fearful that their trust in the United States government could be betrayed.

As trust grew, though, so did the program. Almost 1.5 million Dreamers took advantage of the program, and almost 800,000 have been approved for renewal. More than 100,000 of them signed up just in the first year following the election of Donald Trump, who said of Dreamers at an Inauguration Day luncheon, “We don’t want to hurt those kids.” Soon after, at a news conference in February 2017, he called the Dreamers “incredible kids,” and pledged to deal with them “with heart.” In an interview that April with the Associated Press, he reassured Dreamers again, saying, “We’re not after the Dreamers, we are after the criminals… That is our policy,” and that Dreamers could “rest easy” about his policies.

In June 2017, however, a group led by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, threatened a legal challenge to DACA if President Trump did not rescind the program by September 5th, 2017.

On that very date, September 5th, 2017, one year ago last week, President Trump sent his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to stand in for him before the cameras and declare DACA rescinded, and since then Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been working to get its hands on the names and addresses of every person registered for DACA – and their family members.

The move was then, and remains now, highly unpopular among most segments of America. Apart from deploring the sheer cruelty of betraying the hard-won trust of hundreds of thousands of productive members of American society (including many veterans), many business leaders and even many GOP leaders are opposed to the idea of rescinding DACA for other reasons as well. The cost to US employers is estimated to be $6.3 billion in employee turnover costs, including recruiting, hiring, and training over 700,000 new employees to replace trained and productive employees they already have. Further, applying for the program is not free, and the application fees alone generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the government.

Houston, the largest city in Ken Paxton’s state of Texas, is among the nation’s top five cities for DACA recipients. It was also underwater this time last year due to the effects of Hurricane Harvey. One can only imagine the upheaval that was experienced there, without even considering images of families physically being torn apart by government agents, as productive members of society (including doctors, paramedics, and countless unsung heroes of the Harvey rescue effort) risked being detained, and their parents deported.

Paul Ryan said last September, “It is my hope that the House and Senate… will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution… ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country.” Of course, Ryan is in a position to do far more than just hope; he himself has the ability to overcome his party’s stated reason for the need to rescind DACA – that is, that dealing with such things should be the job of Congress, not the president – and to do so quickly. All he need do is introduce a bill making DACA federal law, and convince his colleagues in Congress to support it – a clean bill that simply does what he and most of his colleagues claim to support: making DACA federal law, and keeping the promise made by our federal government to hundreds of thousands of trusting souls.

Today, a year later, court challenges have staved off the end of DACA so far, but Congress still has failed to bring a clean DACA bill to a vote. A Gallup poll from this past summer showed that 83% of Americans support not only the idea of allowing Dreamers to stay in the US, but allowing them a path to full citizenship. The nation and the world have been watching closely to judge the character and integrity of the US government and the value of its promises. With so many Americans in support of DACA, and so many lives being thrown into chaos, we might have expected that our Republican-controlled Congress would act quickly to demonstrate that character and integrity to the world and to fulfill the publicly stated goals of the party’s leadership; and yet a full year has passed, and hundreds of thousands of lives still hang in the balance.

Of course, 83% is not 100%, and a small minority of Americans remain opposed to DACA in any form. Among that small minority, for example, is Trump advisor and anti-immigration activist Kris Kobach, who famously argued last year on Fox News that DACA recipients “are not children,” and that there is “nothing wrong” with telling them to just “go home.” Kobach, now 52, is currently employed as the Secretary of State of Kansas, and is campaigning for the governorship of Kansas, the state he has been proud to call his home ever since his parents brought him there from Wisconsin at the age of seven.

I remember watching old episodes of Westerns like "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" on a leftover black-and-white television that we carried out to our small breezeway when the nights were warm. I remember dreaming of one day growing up to become a wealthy pioneer in the wide open spaces of the untamed West, just like the Cartwrights on their Ponderosa Ranch, even though that world was already 100 years in the past.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. We all feel some kind of sentimental longing or wistful affection for things from the past, whether something with happy personal associations, like those warm nights spent on the breezeway of my old family home, or some vision of the past we’ve acquired from others, as I did watching those old episodes of "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke."

Matt Dillon’s version of Dodge City and Ben Cartwright’s Ponderosa were fictions, of course, but the dozens of television Westerns that dominated the airwaves in the years following World War II represented a dream of a simpler time, and helped America to define itself as a nation in the wake of its sudden rise to international prominence. The heroes of these Westerns never failed to stand up for honesty and integrity, hard work and determination, tolerance, and equal justice under the law – the set of core values we have come to refer to as “The American Way.”

American nostalgia comes in many flavors. Instead of a sleepy town in the Old West with a sidewalk of rough boards lining a sun-baked dirt street, imagine a small town in the Northeast in 1900, where everyone knows one other and can walk almost anywhere they need to go. In the center of town is a bandstand draped with red, white, and blue bunting. A barbershop quartet performs while townsfolk placidly stroll arm in arm, enjoying the cool evening air. Can you see it in your mind’s eye?

Or imagine twenty-five years earlier, family members gathered around a Midwest hearth while a snowstorm howls outside. Ma is cooking the turkey that Uncle Clay shot just that morning with the shotgun that now leans against the sod wall, and the eldest daughter plays songs that everyone knows on the out of tune piano the family brought with them on a wagon all the way from Maryland. Can you hear the snow pattering against the door?

Or picture a large house deep in the antebellum South, its facade adorned with thick columns, surrounded by a broad green lawn and several ancient oak trees dripping Spanish moss. The lady of the house sits in the shade of the largest oak, sipping a refreshing mint julep while rosy-cheeked children play happily nearby. A canopied horse-drawn buggy clatters into view, and a light breeze wafts the scent of magnolia over the scene. Can you see the dust rising from the buggy wheels?

It’s easy for us to visualize these idyllic scenarios, even without ever having experienced them ourselves. Their descriptions have been passed down to us in story, song, and image by our forebears, for some of whom they were reality.

The descriptions are incomplete, of course. That’s the nature of nostalgia; we treasure the good and discard the bad, like separating wheat from chaff. The reality of what we and our ancestors experienced in the past had negative aspects as well. As a trivial example, the picture quality on that television in our breezeway was quite poor, and just arranging the antenna to get a strong enough signal was always a struggle. More seriously, many lives were lost in the years before seat belts that would have been saved by their use, life on the streets of frontier towns in the Old West was harsh and dangerous, and ranches like the fictional Ponderosa spanned hundreds of thousands of acres of land that once had been home to native tribes.

The three nostalgic historical scenarios I’ve outlined above have their dark sides as well. Many in 1900 lived in fear of tuberculosis and influenza; together those illnesses took more lives per capita than both cancer and heart disease do today. In 1875, the largest locust swarm in recorded history (1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide, equal to the area of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware combined) swept across the Great Plains, driving settlers from their sod houses. The mint julep being sipped in the shade by a Southern belle was prepared by a house slave, while elsewhere on the estate dozens more slaves, born into bondage as the children and grandchildren of kidnapped Africans, toiled all day in the fields without rest or water under the blazing sun and the overseer’s whip.

The nostalgic images we choose to cherish hold symbolic meaning for us and represent our aspirations. In them we can envision ourselves as the wisest and best versions of ourselves. We take pride in standing up for what’s right and just, like the principled heroes of old TV Westerns; we do not murder one another in the street over imagined slights like the outlaws of the Old West. We seek out a sense of community such as what we imagine existed in small-town 1900; we do not seek to spread a shadow of sickness and fear over our communities. We manage to pry our eyes away from our electronic devices and spend some family time together while at home on a snowy day; we do not swarm together like locusts to sweep others from the land. We daydream about spending some quiet leisure time in the shade, far from the daily grind of work; we do not proudly shout slogans and display symbols representing the dehumanization, demonization, disenfranchisement, or extinction of entire races and creeds.

We must find in ourselves the capacity and willingness, as Americans – truly, as human beings – to recognize and venerate the noble and nourishing wheat found in our history and heritage, separating and distinguishing that from the dishonorable and shameful chaff also found there. While we may justifiably live in hope of reclaiming or retaining the best aspects of our past, we must always refuse to allow any perpetuation of its worst.