What sickened the American soul?

Nobody I know approves of America’s behavior. Some tolerate it because it fattens their wallets, but even they, in private, admit disgust. Few claim responsibility for this result. It was plutocrats, MAGA, social media, sleazy politicians, woke lefties, Fox News, hydrogenated fats, Citizens United that corroded our spiritual health: never I, always they. In a democracy, we praise ourselves when things go well and excoriate others when they don’t.

Less finger-pointing, more soul-searching might serve us better. How did we the people get so sick? And if we survive, how recuperate? Nations, like people, die. For the body politic no less than the body corporal, living longer and healthier is the only sensible goal.

Diet and exercise, we’re endlessly reminded, are the key to physical fitness. Likewise spiritual. What our minds ingest and how we spend our vim determines our soul’s well-being.

Fear and dread are essential components of a moral diet. War made my parents and their parents fear for their lives. The Great Depression taught those who endured it the fragility of states. My generation enjoyed – if that’s the verb – lifetimes of peace and plenty. Never in history have more people led a more comfortable existence than in post-war America. No world wars, fewer climactic horrors, fewer plagues – Covid, compared to the Black Death, was a walk in the park – plenty of jobs, dumbfounding technological progress, gradual expansion of the rights of most – what wasn’t to like? Ease bred indolence which bred discontent. Increasingly we concerned ourselves with our personal comfort, not the well-being of all. Stuff heightened our appetite for more stuff, privilege for more privilege. We expected happiness, that absurd human aspiration, and when actuality fell short, we grumped.

We cared less for each other. Public service of some sort was viewed as mandatory when I was a kid. Gradually it became optional. Politics was an honorable profession, not a scum collector. Communities disintegrated as ever-larger corporate entities replaced family-owned enterprises. TV’s, then computers, isolated us in our rooms. The more convenient our lives, the less we counted on neighbors.

Ease is a disease. We got out of shape as citizens. I remember before the 2016 election a smart amiable neighbor assuring me “it didn’t matter” who we elected. America, in his view, was on autopilot to perfection. If we got it wrong, the system would self-correct. Such cockiness breeds sloth breeds congestive heart failure. Stupefied, we the people stumbled into today’s dangerous ditch.

So, doc, if that’s my diagnosis, what’s the cure?

Health is easier to destroy than fix. We’ve all got lists of repairs to our republic. Like any spooked patient, we vow better conduct if saved.

The trick will be fixing our souls. That’s where we need the fear and dread. There’s no chance of cajoling us into our senses: humans aren’t that educable. We must be scared into our wits. Now is our oh-shit moment. If we don’t get together and get serious, we could lose our American cornucopia. Our land of boisterous opportunity could turn into a tyranny of cheerless bondage.

Churchill’s words before the Battle of Britain, with little revision, might serve in this grim hour:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIf we can stand up to him, America may be free and move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if America last a thousand years, people will still say:

“This was their finest hour.”