After September 11th, 2001, several of the more mild-mannered, observant, and eloquent participants in national discussions (mostly writers and columnists) noticed a marked lack of statesmen and citizens with the ability to adequately eulogize the events of 9/11. The memorial service for the Twin Towers consisted in part of readings from other famous speeches, words that comforted our nation in times of crisis before. While comforting, and providing a sense of continuity and a reminder that we will endure and thrive--as we always have--there's still something lacking. Today, in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings and deaths, communities all over the country are again feeling that absence.
My friend Groucho's senior thesis is on how American Presidents have become celebrities instead of statesmen, and such an argument is sadly underscored and supported in times of tragedy. President Bush's words today at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute were somber and heartfelt, but generic and uninspired. Furthermore, the tone of the speech was overly religious--perhaps appropriate for many in the audience in front of him, but not for the national and more diverse audience of Americans, who live in a secular state and are bound together first and foremost by nationality.
Trying times call for great leaders, the kinds who are able to eulogize tragedy and lead us out of it. Lincoln reminding us that our founding father conceived of liberty and equality, refusing to let that vision perish from the Earth. Roosevelt being there for everyone on the day that lives in infamy. From Pericles' funeral oration, leaders have risen to greatness and legend with the right words for their people. Are there to be no more great statesmen in the American tradition?
The American people will come together after a terrorist attack. They'll pour their hearts into a devastated city. They'll be there for the victims of the worst shooting rampage in the nation's history. And maybe now that any self-righteous moron with a blog can put his words on the internet for all to see, a single voice to hold everyone's hand isn't as necessary as it once was. Maybe we don't need a Pericles to tell us of the valor of the fallen (especially when if the valor is great enough, someone will turn it into a movie). And maybe we don't need a Lincoln to remind us of our national roots when we could look them up on Wikipedia. And maybe a collective national consciousness and discussion is a better realization of our founding fathers' vision of true democracy than anything one man could create from a pulpit.
But it would still be nice if someone would emerge and give the fallen and the grieving the voice and comfort they deserve...and be the voice for the rest of us as well, for us to speak to those most affected, for us to speak to the world, and for us to speak to each other.
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We do indeed live in an age of “trying times”. We do not however live in an age of originality; most of today’s music is merely sampled tracks from the past, movies are remade and sequeled into the double digits and politicians are merely a Frankenstein of favorable traits that polled well in the past that are now thrown together into a political identity that appeals to the most voters. All of this a safe bet that falls under the heading of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Bush giving a shoutout to God in Virginia is like Third Eye Blind giving a shoutout to Penn at Fling, its a safe bet that you will get a favorable reaction from the crowd... but the problem is that it has been done before; everybody does it. The problem with taking the safe bet, with the "if it ain't broke" strategy, is that there is no innovation, there is no risk, there is nothing left but the banality of our culture and our government to feed us back the same platitudinal crap that we were spoon fed before. To change, requires originality, requires taking a risk, requires a voice. That voice can only be heard if there are those who dare to say that there needs to be a change... and then make those changes happen. Our nation is not about the voice of one, but rather the voice of many. And waiting for that one voice to emerge does nothing but lock ones self into the circle of banality that does nothing but reinforce itself. Whether its is to entertain us, to lead us or to comfort us, people must step up and say that a change needs to be made and that they are willing to be original, to take a risk, not to be the sole voice of a nation but rather another note in a chores of fellow statesmen who are willing to do what it takes to ensure that change, to ensure that there is a voice for those of us who are too scared to speak, a voice for us to speak to those most affected, a voice for us to speak to the world, and a voice for us to speak to one another. For without a voice, there is no freedom at all, only the illusion of freedom.
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