FROM THE EDITOR: A Bit of British Perspective on Our Present Malaise
As America heads toward its 250th birthday bash, it's an older, historically richer, society -- England -- that provides a much-needed dose of optimism at this time in our history.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Britain may no longer be a dominant world empire — indeed, these days it can’t even figure out how to keep a prime minister longer than a few years (five since 2016, with the current PM on the hot-seat) — but there are two things it still leads the English-speaking world in: masterfully using the English language, and telling the American story.
Consider the brilliant series being produced by the Economist on the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the United States. It’s a succinct and insightful summary in seven parts (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are currently available — you’ll need a subscription) of the American story. And it could only be written by a people whose own history is four times longer than our own. Actually longer, but 1066 is a good date to stand on for the start of what we know today as England.
That experience of a continuous history has no rival in the United States. Consider that my grandfather, born in 1912, had first-hand conversations with veterans of America’s most consequential conflict — the Civil War. At 64, I have in my memory those first-hand accounts he gave to me. And that event is just 90 years removed from the nation’s founding.
And with that longer sense of history comes a type of perspective Americans generally don’t have.
Consider this passage from the first installment of the series.
The Declaration became America’s first great statement of liberal principle, espousing those Enlightenment ideals of natural rights and government by consent. It proclaimed that “all men are created equal”—though many of its signatories owned slaves. With rare exceptions, white women and black people were excluded from voting, as were many poor white men. Indigenous nations were ignored or exploited. The world’s first liberal republic was, in practice, a narrow aristocracy (without the noble titles). But, as George Washington said, the government’s true character would only emerge with time. [Emphasis added]
Compare that with the American legal tradition of originalism, that drives us back repeatedly to the original text (a good thing) to unearth the “original public meaning it would have had at the time that it became law,” according to the Constitution Center.
This obsession with “original meaning” also pervades a dominant thread of American religion — evangelicalism — which argues that every word of the bible is to be taken as literally true, and that anyone can interpret it from a plain reading of the text. That there is still no agreement on what the “original” text of the bible is doesn’t seem to bother people.
I write this not as a critique of originalism — as a historian by training, trying to understand what people intended has been central to my life’s work as first a scholar and now as a journalist.
Rather, it’s to draw attention to what the Economist put a spotlight on early in its series on the American story. The government’s true character, and I would argue the character of the country, only emerges over time.
And If we use England as the yardstick, we’re still very early in the game of finding out who we are as Americans.
Finding Hope in Time
For many today, America’s 250th celebration feels more like a funeral dirge. From a near-historic unpopular president to a revolution in technology that is dampening the hopes of recent graduates about their ability to launch successful careers, and from income inequality to historically high levels of mistrust in the institutions that govern the country, it is understandable that people feel dour about the future.
It’s hardly the first time that we have been at such a crossroads, however. And it is in the crucible of such challenges that the country’s “true character” reveals itself.
That character is grounded in an unwavering belief that each of us has the ability to make things better.
In my 30 years of journalism and travels around the country and the world, I know of no other country as animated by that belief than the United States.
In my own industry I have worked through periods of downsizings and declining trust in journalists. The shape of the media landscape today, however, is arguably healthier than at anytime in the past three decades. It’s evident not just in the proliferation of nonprofit newsrooms that are finding their legs across the country; it’s journalists actively redefining what news is — and regaining the public trust in the process.
The Advance has certainly played a small role in that by rejecting the idea that journalism can be done “objectively,” and instead insisting that we lean into our experiences and worldviews to tell the stories that matter. And that we invite along as many perspectives on this as we can.
Especially when those perspectives — grounded in solid research and reporting — are unpopular.
On the government level, as federal funds begin to dry up for traditional programs, we see state governments and nonprofits searching for ways to meet needs without depending as heavily on the government funding that built the American safety net from the 1930s until now.
As energy needs grow, we are watching in real time as innovators such as the Rappahannock Electric Cooperative’s CEO John Hewa is creating whole new business models to both deliver for the household and local business customers it serves, while expanding to deliver power to the data centers that are powering the economy of tomorrow.
Businesses are doing their share as well. At last week’s topping off ceremony for the new data center in Stafford County, Dr. Pamela Yeung celebrated the $60 million in capital improvements that Stack Infrastructure, which is building the site at the Stafford Technology Campus, is taking off the county’s Capital Improvement Plan books. [Stack Infrastructure is a FXBG Advance supporter, but has no editorial control over the Advance’s content.]
Faith communities are also pouring in, supporting services for those in need both within their congregations and within their communities. The Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, for example, like most food banks across the country, have longstanding ties with faith communities that strengthen the food banks’ ability to deliver nourishment.
Certainly things are not perfect.
Job displacement is real, painful, and not to be ignored. As a journalist, I’ve experienced it personally. There are no sunny words to soften the blow of hearing “we’re letting you go.”
Just as there are good actors in business and government, there are bad actors, too, who take advantage of misfortune to profit.
Income inequality is disturbing. It is worse today than it was during America’s Gilded Age.
And critical institutions we all depend on — public schooling and healthcare — are at crossroads facing very uncertain futures.
The question becomes, where to we look? To the past. Or to the future?
Finding Comfort in Perspective
What our British friends across the pond see that perhaps too many of us cannot, is that our strength in not in our past. It is not in our founding documents. It is not in our form of government. It is is something more ethereal.
It is grounded in the belief that our true character is still to be fully revealed.
And this is the basis of hope that Americans feel in a way that few others around the world do.
Such is the curse and the joy of youth — we as a nation still aren’t mature enough to fully understand what it is we founded a quarter of a millennium ago, and we’re still brash enough to believe that each one of us has the ability to chart a way forward for ourselves and the communities we share.
This 250th anniversary, be thankful that there are those in the world with the depth of experience to appreciate and explain what it is about a relatively young America that still inspires hope — both here and abroad.
Cheers.
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