Dear Editor,
I was six-years-old when “Joltin’ Joe,” aka “The Yankee Clipper,” was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.
At that time, post-war Americans were riding a wave of patriotism and viewing the world with confidence and optimism.
Yet only 12 years later, Paul Simon, in writing the song “Mrs. Robinson” for the movie “The Graduate,” acknowledged America’s longing for past heroes with his words “Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
On March 27, the New York Post offered an opinion piece by 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy entitled “The USA is experiencing a crisis in faith - in itself.”
Essentially, the message is that Americans are pulling back from traditional values. Especially among younger generations, values of patriotism, religion, family, and hard work are decreasing in importance. A Wall Street Journal survey conducted over the first two weeks of March of roughly 1000 people revealed that 59% of Americans 65 and older say patriotism is very important compared to only 23% of adults under 30 agreeing. In fact, the only value that is growing in worth to most Americans was money.
Ramaswamy believes the shift in values is indicative of students being taught to apologize for our country’s history rather than be proud of it.
He suggests that public schools celebrate diversity as our strength without reminding students of what binds us together as one people. We have only to look at the Ukrainian peoples’ response to the Russian invasion to see what patriotic love and devotion to one’s country looks like.
Could it be that we Americans have it too good – too many luxuries, too many devices that preoccupy and distract us from the most important aspects of living our lives? I ask because it seems that when we encounter human suffering, we are more likely to find the capacity to elicit empathy and compassion toward our fellow man.
For me, those are emotions that need to be valued and elevated within face-to-face interactions whereby they become essential aspects of daily communications.
Tragically, also on March 27, a mass shooting took place at the Covenant Elementary School in Nashville that resulted in the deaths of three adults in their early 60s and three nine-year-old children.
In assessing what is appropriate and required in such a moment of community anguish, Paul Purdue, senior pastor at Belmont UMC, said, “We need to step back. We need to breathe. We need to grieve. We need to remember. We need to hear the cries of our neighbors.”
We all have within us the capacity for such sympathetic consciousness and understanding. We only need to appreciate its forever value.
Peter Wibell, Rutledge