The 4th of July hasn’t felt the same to me in quite some time. The country I was born in doesn’t feel the same as it once did. Yet it does. In ways I wish I could ignore. Those are obvious observations many share, I’m sure. To me they are painful ones. Very painful.
I’m not one who ever believed that this country (or any country), given the way governments and people work, was divinely founded or inspired to do what is right. Humankind is too arrogant, too selfish, and too human to think that doesn’t spill over into governing and social intercourse any more or less so than it does into any other field of endeavor. The American musicalized version of our founding is indeed powerful and seductive, but it mostly hides the sour notes, even if at times it reveals truths it often obscures.
In this last decade plus it’s become excruciating to watch centuries-old hatreds arise from wounds once thought closed and healed, unleashed by a madman able to turn others just as mad. Insidious infections have popped through the surface and festered anew, revealing that far too many have no understanding of or desire to understand the bonds we share as humans on a rock orbiting a star, divided by arbitrary borders and divisions, assuming we can somehow control the chaos we continue to create.
Yes, the Declaration of Independence broke new ground in humankind’s advance, but in our current moment, it’s challenging, bordering on disingenuous, to say it altered the course of its continuing evolution.
For those who say that this 4th of July is for celebrating our 250th anniversary as a country, I’d offer this. Kinda yes, mostly no.
The years before and immediately following the Declaration proved just how close we came to not seeing those grievances become more than bold and dangerous statements on a piece of parchment. Yes, we won the American Revolution that sprung from the Declaration. But there were as many on this continent who were quite content to remain under the rule of a king, as those who revolted against it.
The men who wrote and signed that document were willing to hang for their actions. I don’t see too many (or enough) willing to do the same today.
In the 250 years since, we’ve had other close runs at seeing it all rent asunder. The Declaration in and of itself opened a door, it didn’t build as firm a foundation as many thought and hoped, or a country. That came later.
We’re living through another close run at tearing it all down, somehow finding too many of our fellow citizens content, as many of their forbearers were, to putting their lives in the hands of a king-like ruler once again. It will take decades to overcome this era, not because rulings and laws can’t be changed. They can. Surprisingly we’re finding they are also easy enough to ignore. We’ve given new life to dark and sickened hearts that will poison not only themselves and that which they touch, but the generation or two that comes after them.
The Declaration of Independence and the country that came after were never perfect. Proving that neither are we, neither are those who preceded us, and neither will be those who will succeed us. It was actually an acknowledgment of humankind’s imperfections. It was a promise, and it was a start, following a shot heard round the world. We’re still running the race that shot started, against the same headwinds of our own making, the promise still unfulfilled.
The act of reaching the Declaration of Independence is indeed worth celebrating, even if we keep extending the play by adding repetitive acts that keep rehashing the same plot points that made it necessary.
The 4th of July is also worth celebrating for all of the Americans, past and present, who think it is still worth pushing back against those who don’t care for what it has meant, flawed in its creation or no, and only see in its imperfections and the constitution that followed years later, other tools for self aggrandizement and enrichment.
Celebrate who we want to be, not who dark hearts keep reminding us we are. Castigation is all they deserve.
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