Ginny

Age: 77 Place: Originally Nebraska, now Texas Family: Husband, 3 daughters, 3 sons-in-law, 3 grandchildren Occupation: Retired Education: BA, MA Nebraska; Ph.D. UT-Austin Work On hhe Double (1979-1992); taught: ta Austin, Blinn Jr. College (1993-20015), Kelly Girls intermittently.

American Archetypes: Power & Humility

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I’ve always been a sucker for the great Jungian archetypes. When Jammie-Wearing-Fool pointed this out, the Times’ image reverberated. But not in a completely pleasant way. The Hitler meme may be tired, but my instinctive memory was of Triumph of the Will, which taught me how much images evoked even when they are countered by reason and knowledge.

A Reynolds’ reader points out the cross isn’t appropriate for the leader of the most powerful nation on earth; he’s more a Herod/Caeser/Pilate. And perhaps Lent isn’t a great time to blaspheme. But, then, does the Times even know the meaning that gives power to the symbols they manipulate? They swim through a world whose history is rich with such symbols, but they don’t understand the richness within an image. Of course, they do cherish that frisson of edgy sentiment. And they know enough to know that they lose power if the images are of chocolates and the Easter Bunny. (Unless, of course, like the New Yorker, they crucify the bunny.) The Times doesn’t seem campy – over-the-top, perhaps, but not ironic.

But I’m not so easily seduced – indeed, something else strikes me. This picture doesn’t have American heroism, doesn’t have the power of the great American archetypes. American history is of humility linked with grandeur: our presidents are large not because the White House is in their shadow, but rather because they are in its. Neither larger than the office nor wiser than the Constitution, their heroism comes because they reverence those ideas, losing their selves in them. Enlarged by the White House, they are well aware of the distinction between their private selves and the public office they hold but for a term or two.

Our presidents have needed a sureness of touch, a confidence that orders men into battle. But they also needed humility. George Washington handing over his sword, George Washington handing over his office – these are symbols of heroism. Many a man has been a general; few have had the self-respect, the pride in country and history (minimal as that history was for that early, role-defining president), the humility before not the founders but the founders’ ideas. Such humility gives backbone; it comes from a large, simple and even ego-less pride.

We haven’t been seeing much humility lately. But that is what moves us; it structures the archetypes Americans catch their breath over, indeed, the ones that mist our eyes.

Rebar and the Anti-Adams

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Okay, I’m no lawyer. But we’ve long suspected, as Legal Insurrection notes, Obama’s “not really into that rule of law stuff.” Hershel Smith’s “Captainsjournal” quotes an Althouse commentor who sees Obama “at his core, the anti-John Adams.” Smith’s rifts make me smile – its nice to remember those witty, self-deprecating, stubborn old guys.

And their priorities were broad and integrated. It is we who have become not only small but dissociated. Foster often reminds us that the big picture includes commerce, business, economics. Discussing Abigail Adams, Woody Holton emphasizes her role as canny businesswoman – as her descendants noted long ago. She wants, she tells John, to match his statesmanship with her prowess as “farmeress.” His proud rejoinder was her foresight about matters of state matched her business skills – both arising from her understanding of human nature. That understanding grew as her shouldering of responsibility did: their partnership freed both to do more for family & nation. Holton admires her courage and wisdom – in land dealing, in farming, in speculating. She understood the importance for a family and for a nation of a solid financial footing. His discussion of prenups (her sisters took that unusual but legal path) and her ways of distributing money to give responsibility and freedom to her female relatives came from her own personal growth. She understood fulfillment was the base of prosperity and felicity. She understood productivity – intellectual, personal, economic, societal – as the context for “the pursuit of happiness.”

Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, our respect for the Scots beliefs all led to a sense that businesses need independence; they should be supported by as much as restrained by our laws. The Adams must have discussed, argued & formulated these concepts in “curtain talks” like those of the HBO series Smith admires. But this is often misunderstood by our more fragmented modern society (and often fragmented selves). When Obama patronizes careers in business he is signaling his alienation from the values of our forefathers as much as when he speaks of taking action against the Supreme Court. But all is connected in ways those like the Adams understood.

They would understand what we see: an obvious correlation between the rule of law and the use of rebar. Predictable, structurally sound rebar doesn’t intrude itself in our lives but supports walls between which we can live freely, expecting the laws that stood yesterday to stand tomorrow. And we can build a rich life, expecting that our family, in a predictable fashion, will be enriched by our work – intellectual, social, material. But a society without rebar is always on the verge of catastrophe: by a whim, walls may stand or fall. And when a catastrophe comes, the walls will fall hard and fast.

(Meanwhile, Instapundit links to Jammie Wearing Fool, who tells us that only 77% of Investors see Obama as anti-business.)

Ambition & Tuition

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The left seems to think the right is going to be shocked by – what – music videos?

Beck unhinges pretty easily (and yes, for those of us whose family owe their lives to Indian doctors, some rants are offensive). But he’s a hell of a lot more shocked at Bill Ayers. His “unhingement” still retains more balance than the left’s. What’s creepier – posing nude at 22 or acting as Edwards has at. . . , starring in a video (admittedly a bit irritating in that boring 80’s way) in your youth or being Teddy Kennedy in your old age.

Whatever may or may not be true of the Palins and Browns, they appear to have engaged life with zest; one of the balancing acts of their youths – and probably of their lives – have been economic. Perhaps their fiscal care was learned balancing ambition and tuition. The left’s desire to make loans seductive & college a “right”, to featherbed administration and tenured jobs while increasing the load on grad students and adjuncts has had detrimental effects on cost as well substance. Many an academic is critical of Benjamin Franklin, perhaps because he understood debt undercuts integrity, that “it’s hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”

Perhaps such choices came because it’s a kick to pose nude, to see different colleges when a world tour is not easily financed. I like that – some risk taking reflects energy and engagement, they live with it and learn from it. But, most of all, I’d rather people made choices that resulted in videos than a mountain of debt. The left, of course, would rather put those students who don’t buy the books – or read them – at the back of my class, whining they can’t drop because they might lose their student loans. These are students often neither stupid nor consciously dishonest; they are, however, passive and misdirected. They do not value learning but rather the “college experience,” have no imagination to see another path, and, well, have no clue about themselves, education, debt, the world. As they wander through life, they may never get that clue. And this won’t help. Plus, don’t get me started on the theory that “at risk” kids in high school should start taking college-level classes in high school – subsidized by the government of course.

Brown as Warning

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Looking back, I realize I didn’t begin with the positive, and I agree with Kennedy there appears to be plenty of positive: Brown, even under fire, remains honest, with a sense of humor and the apparent self-confidence and humility that comes with such humor, and he also appears, well, hot.

He’s helped though by a pent-up irritation: policies we thought unwise have deteriorated into policies we find foolish, the unseemly has slid into the mire of outright bribery, the short-sighted has so dominated that disaster lurks. On a not unrelated note, attitudes that rankled those of us in fly-over territory have become pervasive and bizarre. They are not the attitudes of those with a sense of humor nor apparent self-confidence, and, especially, without humility. (Arrogance is not self-confidence.)

Even citizens of a state that seemed to give pre-Revolutionary respect to family succession appear annoyed a candidate disses their sports heroes, shrinks from handshaking and winter politicking, and seems appalled by pick-ups. (Whatever Marie Antoinette actually said or actually meant, the inappropriateness of her response defined her – and beheaded her – even when such kingly rights were more widely accepted).

My husband’s uncle, far into retirement and deep into Texas, has proclaimed that he intends for the first time in years to “pull an all-nighter” – to see Brown triumph, he hopes. And, in the tradition of these parts, Ray Stevens disses Obamacare.