A Quintessentially American Event
Like others, at first I was put off by the hooting and hollering during last night's memorial service for the victims of the rampage killing in Tucson. The mood was not as somber and meditative as you might have expected. But then I realized that today's America is about as far from somber and meditative as you can get. In so many ways, then, the memorial last night was a quintessentially American event.
There was, for example, the unusual mix of Native American religion with frank appeals to Christianity. America is a religious country, but Americans are not sectarian. We pick and choose from a menu of religious and spiritual traditions that includes everything from animism to Christianity to Islam to secularism.
There was the democratic atmosphere of the sports arena. It was loud, participatory, tasteless. It was over the top. It was, in other words, reflective of American culture.
In this culture, the high mixes with the low. State ceremony commingles with behavior you'd otherwise find at a monster truck rally. Strong emotions—tears, applause, shouts—are expressed alongside invocations of high ideals.
The president's speech was successful because he didn't attempt to politicize the apolitical. He stood in the center of American culture and politics and spoke as a national leader for the first time in years. He embraced the scene around him, thereby taking his place in a much larger American tableau.
Boisterous, rude, sappy, populist, kind, spiritual, heroic, noble—all this is America today. What a country.
- Comment (12)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Here, here. A nation well suited for a Republican form of government.
Sep '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
The crowd was made up to a large degree of college students and their response says zero about how somber and meditative America can get. I guess one should never let the facts get in the way of what they have to say.
Jul '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Hey, hey, hey, hey! Comparing an Obama event to a monster-truck rally is egregious snark.
Monster-truck fans everywhere await your abject apology.
Dec '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Actually, they were quite well-behaved at the VaTech memorial: (h/t Michelle Malkin).
Dec '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Agreed. College-aged kids suffer no reproach given their immersion in virtual-reality leisure and relationships, their cloistered sojourn from responsibility, and the mocking nihilism of their education comingled with the elaborate schemes of faculty, deans, provosts, and presidents designed to extend this state of puerility and inflate its costs in order to pad their tenure, lifestyle, and pensions.
Why would anyone have the expectation of their behavior approaching any semblance of that of an adult?
They were only being used as tools for a political rally.
Nov '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Perhaps I am alone in feeling this way but I was horrified by the whole thing. I happen to have 2 daughters at about the age of the child that was murdered and had I been in the shoes of her father I would have been beside myself at the crassness of the whole thing. A memorial service is not a time for cheering and clapping but for solemn reflection, mourning, and prayer. I cannot help but feel that in our present society we have completely lost the ability to either grieve properly or sympathize with those who have suffered loss.
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
This doesn't fit the conversational threat, I'll admit, Matt, but I hugely enjoyed your Weekly Standard story comparing the Thirties with the present-day. A marvelous conception, beautifully executed. In other words, you have an admiring reader in California.
Jul '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
The man writes good.
Aug '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
Kenneth: Hey, hey, hey, hey! Comparing an Obama event to a monster-truck rally is egregious snark.
Monster-truck fans everywhere await your abject apology. · Jan 13 at 9:58am
Er... I don't know if you realize exactly how highbrow monster-truck rallying really is.
After all, "Nothin’ says deconstruction like ten tons of steel and rubber bitin’ into the chassis of a gas-guzzling minivan."
(Apologies for the production quality of the video -- but the skit itself is cute.)
Aug '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
My wife and I were both put off by the constant applause and boisterousness of the memorial service. I'm afraid it demonstrates how our society has lost all sense of reverence, especially the younger generation.
I realize that college students tend to be a boisterous lot but surely someone in their life has instructed them how to behave at such an event. Not everything is a rally or a sporting event, for Heaven's sake!
It was definitely the wrong venue for such an event but perhaps President Obama knew it would suit his needs...
Jan '11
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
To suggest that the President of the United States did not know and endorse the use of a campaign slogan, t-shirts, and open concession stands (nothing says somber like a brat and a cold beer) at a memorial service and could not have stopped it requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Obama knew what atmosphere was being built and wanted it so that he could look "above the fray".
Jun '10
Re: A Quintessentially American Event
That asinine Indian opening prayer was unbearable. I had no plans to watch the speech, but had to see that loon. This was a typical PC Arizona event. You can't get two libs together in a room without one of them wanting some deep meaningful, ancient indian feather ceremony. It is always more important to libs to cater to the .00001 percent of the population of pagans than to actually invoke the blessings of God.