Semi Sesquintennial

I wanted to wait till the hubbub was over before posting some thoughts on our 250th anniversary. Several articles I read at the time suggested that most Americans had only a vague idea what was being celebrated, which if true is a sad state of affairs to be sure though I don't wish to dwell on that issue in this post but on the larger frame, the story of the rise and fall of nations.

Whether the average American shares the knowledge of our country's founding much less a sense of the history of nations other than ours is, I am afraid, a revealing question in and of itself. While I cannot claim to be the most well informed on either subject, I can recall that it was the subject of many hours of instruction in my youth and I would imagine my generation was far more informed than the present. But be that as it may, I would wager that only a minority today have any appreciation for the factors which led once great nations to their present standing, how they rose and how they fell.

America is a geographically large and resource abundant country. It has not been a dominant player on the world scene, however, for half as long as most American's believe. Our preeminence is largely a modern invention dating, arguably to the early twentieth century. The history of the thousands of years that preceded its foundation is something only those who are students, scholars or travelers seem to ponder.

I have several goals when I travel, first and foremost to learn about different cultures and customs--to meet people in their own land and discover a bit about their lives. I appreciate art and architecture and never fail to spend time in museums and galleries but most of all I want to understand the history. I always choose several books to read that will give me that appreciation while I am traveling. One cannot truly understand artifacts of the past in the present day without evoking the words, deeds and memories in context.

I remember a childhood television show about the Alamo. It was heroic and noble and inspiring but when I finally saw it in real life it was altogether something else--not at all prepossessing, not at all glamorous, almost pedestrian without the evocation of what transpired. Castles and ruins, cathedrals and monuments, none of these have life without our knowledge of what transpired. History is not dates, battles and successions, but the lives of individuals and of nations writ large.

Wandering through Portugal today, who would imagine it was the dominant nation of its day, greater than Britain, than France than any other --and now a minor European destination. What of Prussia, of the Roman Empire, of Babylonia, Mongolia or Sparta? I could go on but you see my point. nations rise and fall for many different reasons , nothing lasts forever. But against this backdrop, we Americans are so bold as to assume we will persist, against all odds, despite efforts to undermine our inspiration. More, we believe that our time on the world stage has no statute of limitations, that it will persist even in the face of lassitude, our divisions, and our ravenous hunger for resources at the expense of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

It will not, cannot persist as a nation divided; as a country that accepts inequality, that spurns strangers at our door, that fosters ever greater division in class, in wealth, in race, in faith and in gender. Our 250 years stand as nothing against the lessons of the past, of great nations humbled, of untold wealth squandered, of enlightened governance despoiled by greed, and indifference. Our nation has been great not by right but by fortune and the efforts of those who came before us.

In one of his best known poems, Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote

"‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

What will poets and historians write of us 250 years hence?