Two Views of the 4th of July: Second View

“I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of great Americans—the poets and seers. Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate: I can read it like a blueprint. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress—but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dream are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist and escapist, the man of vision a criminal.”    

 

As the Quakers say, these words from Henry Miller’s book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (p. 22) “speak to my condition.” Though written over 80 years ago, their truths (sadly) still are true. Both the portrait of who seems to be running the show and the reminder that they're not the only show in town. As a part-time poet, a thinker, a musical artist and a person of vision, I am at once exiled by the mainstream of my home country and aligned with a glorious counter-culture of American poets, novelists, musicians, artists, thinkers, visionaries. I started making a list and it’s long. Americans I’m proud to claim as fellow-citizens who not only refused the materialist nightmare of exploitation and degradation and monomania, but actively cultivated an alternative vision. 

And not only those whose voices were carried into the national discourse through books, films, recordings and such, but millions more decent, caring, hard-working, playful and loving people whose names we’ll never know. And those whose names we do know, not as famous people or celebrities or stars, but as friends, neighbors, colleagues and family. It is important to remind ourselves and each other that we, too, are America and that flag flies for us as well as the others who are creating such havoc. 

 

So if you choose to celebrate the day, let’s take back the original vision of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” feel the fireworks not as traumatic explosions from the war-machine, but our inner skies lit by the color, design and drum-beat epiphanies celebrating a life well-lived. 

 

And, of course, don’t forget to wish Louis a happy birthday.