Because I want to fool people into thinking I’m smart, I occasionally read publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal online. (Also a teacher once told me never to read something which would embarrass you if you died in the middle of it, and the New York Times is more impressive than http://www.textsfromlastnight.com.) Sometimes (or if I’m being honest, constantly), I stumble across a point I wish I was smart enough to have made. Two Tuesdays ago, on Sept. 15, this is exactly what happened.
David Brooks wrote a column for the New York Times reflecting on the sense of humility found in a USO (United Service Organizations) program celebrating V-J, or Victory in Japan Day, in 1945 — the end of World War II. The program had been re-broadcast on Brooks’ local National Public Radio station. It featured stars like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant and Bette Davis, but, Brooks wrote, “The most striking feature of the show was its tone of self-effacement and humility.” The Allies had just ended, victoriously, half a decade of fighting, but there was no sense of gloating or arrogance.
As Crosby said on the show, “’All anyone can do is thank God it’s over.’” Brooks points out that in the decades following World War II, rather than the humility that two world wars had engendered in a generation, “A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call ‘expressive individualism.’ Instead of being humble before God and history, moral salvation could be found through intimate contact with oneself and by exposing the beauty, the power and the divinity within.”
The focus of American culture and society and what is valued in society has shifted, generally speaking, from prioritizing the good of the many to prioritizing one’s self over the interests of others. Or it may be better to say it has become more socially acceptable to think of one’s self first.
Now generalizations like that are dangerous because they simplify complex phenomena, but bear with me for the moment. The Stones, themselves a product of this cultural shift, tell me, “I’m free to do what I want any old time.” But what does that mean?
If, when I sing this song, I am celebrating that fact that, as a young lady (not a girl, not yet a woman) living in the United States in 2009, I have more rights and liberties than women at arguably any other period in history, well and good. The above phrase isn’t as memorable as the Stones’ lyrics, so thanks to Mick Jagger for the catchy song.
But you and I both know that that’s not what Mick and I are celebrating when we sing “I’m Free.” I won’t say always, but usually, when I sing “I’m free any old time to get what I want,” I mean exactly that. I’m celebrating the fact that I do not have to recognize any claims on my actions higher or more important than my own preferences: I reject any demands God, society, morality or legality may make on my decisions. I am the center of my universe. This is not the way I want to act, but it is the way I do act most of the time.
I don’t know about you, but I encounter very few things during the course of my day that take me out of myself. WWII was a catastrophic event; the death and bloodshed profoundly disturbing. I suppose it was only natural the culture of that generation was outwardly oriented. Today, I think, we allow few things to disturb us in the same way, to shake us out of our comfort zone. We have traded the virtue of humility for that of confidence, but, unfortunately, confidence, just like humility, too easily corrupts. There is a difference between being confident, knowing that you have something to offer to the world, and being arrogant and thinking that the world needs what only you can offer.
On that uplifting and encouraging note, hope you have a lovely week.
— Leigh Dickey is a junior in global studies. She can be reached at [email protected].
