Humility and gratitude ground us. These, of course, are feelings unfamiliar to revolutionaries – those who would destroy the institutions of the past, who see in them nothing of value, in their heroes nothing to be esteemed, in their rituals and duties nothing to be respected. Listening to Obama drone on tonight, my husband and I found ourselves wandering around the house, too jumpy to sit.
But gratitude grounds – and is often an appropriate feeling, even as we renovate. I’ve seldom liked my doctors. And, sure, I figure they do more tests than they need. But I’m grateful, nonetheless. They do those tests because they can, because they may be sued, because they are paid, but most often because they want to know what’s wrong, what’s working. The whole world rides on the rails our procedures, machines, drugs, knowledge lay for them. Newt Gingrich speaks of potential cures for Alzheimer’s. As more of us have aged, we see such a cure would save incredible heart break but also incredible costs. And it would increase productivity from those with a life time of experience and thought. But Gingrich speaks with that zest, that optimism that characterizes the self-reliant, the libertarian right. And it isn’t that we can’t see huge changes in a short time as disease after disease has lost some of its power.
Without gratitude, we don’t have the context for a buoyant “I can.” In Obama’s mouth the sentiment seems thin. In the mouth of a doer, it resonates. Instead of standing with a leader’s pride in his country – its past and its people – he speaks of leveling and of the choices of others that are better. Sure, medicine, indeed about everything in our society, could stand improvement. And comparison with others is useful, sensible. But if we don’t acknowledge what is good than how are we going to pare away what is bad? Destroying both the institutions of the church and of the state didn’t lead to all that idyllic a life under Napoleon.