The Power of Realistic Imagining

                                The Power of Realistic Imagining

                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 23, 2016

“We are the world, we are the children,” or so sang Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and a bevy of other famous singers who got together back in 1985 to promote African famine relief.

  Well, yes we are and no we aren’t.  Certainly we are all human beings with common needs.  Most of us (we of the whole world, I mean) are busy earning bread and caring for families.  All people groups of the world also deal with hardships and dashed dreams.

So there are definitely some things that tie Americans to their fellow world citizens in … Bangladesh, or … Peru, or … Uganda.  There really is a “family of man,” and there is much that all humans around the world hold in common.

To get a sense of this fact, Google and listen to John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.”  Combined with its slow, haunting cadence, its words, “Imagine there’s no countries,” can make one conscious of the desperate, uprooted people of Syria, the poverty of Africa, the eternal unrest of the middle east, the danger of living in drug-lord infested central America, and the Baltic nations that still must fear the Russian bear.  Such suffering in other nations should move us all.

People of all nations are like Americans in at least two ways.  They must eat, and they have non-physical, emotional needs – such as dignity and self-worth – that cry out for fulfillment.

There are three people who have kept my mind on the condition of our world and have inspired me to hope and work for its betterment.  One is an Italian sister-in-law.  Another is an outstanding Indian son-in-law, and the other is also an outstanding son-in-law whose mother is of Mexican descent.   Antonia, Tanveer, and Laurence have taught me much about our world.  Because of their knowledge and respect for all people, my knowledge and thought world have been enriched.  Their background, their stories remind me that we are the world.

There is a limit, however, beyond which such thoughts of globalism just don’t work.  Realism blunts such thoughts.  Yes, we are the world, and most human hearts desire peace and love.  But there is also language, culture, race, and even topography that keep us from being citizens of the world.

Would that it were not so!  If the words “Why can’t we all just get along?” had not come from the lips of a violent, apprehended lawbreaker, we could resort to them more freely.  Rodney King’s question, however, is exactly the question we should be asking.  But we should also know its answer.  Its answer is we must view the world realistically.

Recently I watched a real life video in which a young woman was resisting arrest.  “You cannot arrest me,” she yelled to the cop.  “I’m not a citizen of your jurisdiction.  I’m a citizen of the planet.”  It appeared that she actually believed it as she continued to repeat it and resist the patient officer.

A growing number of college students have seriously adopted this view of their existence.  The grandchildren of the children of the sixties are resurrecting “Peace, brother!” and are labeling patriotism as “nativistic.”  Thus the refusal of more and more college and professional athletes to salute the American flag or to stand while the national anthem is sung.  It must be that they never came to understand or appreciate what America is.

Why did Antonia come to America?  Mainly because she loved my brother and not Mussolini, but she fast became a patriot.  Why did Tanveer leave Bombay for America?  Why did Laurence’s grandparents remove themselves to Texas?  It was because America was a beacon.  She still is, but will not remain so if illegal immigration is not checked,  if certain black leaders don’t start preaching accomplishment and hope instead of resentment, and if our love of freedom doesn’t supplant our love of government largess.

America has been a superpower only since 1945.  Seventy-one years is not a long time.  The world still needs America for an example of what freedom can produce.  Before we sing too much about world citizenship we should ponder what good has come from the American spirit: free markets (groceries), free speech, freedom of religion and more, all of which, according to Jefferson, must forever be guarded and fought for.

John Lennon’s song goes on to say “Imagine no possessions,” and then sallies off into unreality.

When Frenchman Crevecoeur visited our fledgling country, he wrote the following: “The American is a new man who acts upon the new principles of toil and rugged self-reliance.”  Imagine what things would be like if we reclaimed those principles.

Roger Hines

10/19/16