A Patriotism Test

What are your animating spirits?

I’m no MAGA. In fact, I believe that our current President has hijacked the Republican Party, and quite frankly I don’t find either party as attractive as I once may have. Nevertheless, I am not foolish or cynical enough to be unpatriotic. Most everything I genuinely love, I have found in America and those loves have been no small part of its greatness. From myths of Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed and John Henry to the literature of Mark Twain, to the films of Hitchcock and Spielberg. I could go on forever about music, athletics, industry and people. We have an extraordinary history with much that the common man has to celebrate and enjoy.

Americans are not the people we once were. There is something more fraught and overloaded about our attitudes and the things we consider in evaluating the state of the nation. Nothing will convince you like watching the following video which, in plain, simple, wholesome and upbeat language describes the many admirable features of Southern California. I grew up here and an intimately familiar with all of this history.

Watch it. Test yourself.

Are You Patriotically Cynical?
For myself, I found myself able to call it quaint, provincial, deceptive and whitewashed. I can because I have become familiar with every argument and every detail that trivializes or contradicts the value of every feature cited by the announcer. I’m willing to bet that you too are familiar with these arguments. You’ll probably be hearing them in your head as you watch.

At the same time, I recognize the honesty of the monologue and the splendor of the travelogue. Most of all I recognize and find most honorable the simplicity of the people enjoying the sights, sounds and stimulations of midcentury modern America. I can do so without irony, and without much nostalgia. But I do recognize that the spirit of Americans has become darkly moralistic, perhaps in the same way we might have been at the outset of the era of Prohibition.

Here is a prompt for you to ask your favorite LLM, and it’s not quite a rude question.

What was the animating spirit of America in the 1910s and 1920s just before and after WW1? What time did the fever for Prohibition arrive and fall with relation to the Great Depression and the Great Migration?

I see a pattern that I hope you cannot unsee which are the parallels between now and 100 years ago. I’ll just leave it at the first line, that of spirit, or or what we now call ‘vibe’. Same stuff, different century.

I can feel the disillusionment and pragmatism coming. Some people call it the rumblings of a second Civil War. I think not. If there is a war between the factions, it will continue to be one of insufferably arrogant sneering. Well, we’re already in the middle of that. We will have many radicals and few militants. We proved that in the 60s. Pragmatism will win. All of us soft Americans will sell out, just like we did for Apple, Obama, Trump and luxury beliefs.

That is, unless you’re the kind of person who cannot watch this video without becoming this dude and you’re actually suicidal.

By the way, thanks to everyone who liked and restacked Six Seven. It made a big, measurable difference.