Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
Arthur Brown, Willa Cather, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, Zora Neale Hurston and Daniel Burnham. If all these names ring true and deep in your historical knowledge of America, then I applaud you. If, however, they only bring a slight note of recognition, or perhaps none at all, then welcome to the club. You are certainly not alone.
The aforementioned names are among the cultural icons of American history, not just great in the American milieu, but some of the most notable artists and writers in world history. They are the cornerstone of the Golden Age of American culture, central to the American Renaissance in our art, architecture, and literature. They are just a passing few among a much more significant group of American artists. And yet, they are largely unknown to Americans today. Why?
I am not a scholar of any renown. I have four years of college behind me, but I didn’t pursue an advanced degree in the culture and history of America. I am a layman. With that said, 16 years of schooling in the United States should have gifted me some knowledge of the greatness and beauty of our American culture. Instead, my education was a wasteland, yet another example of the barrenness and tragedy of public education in our nation.
A life of learning is one of the great rewards of living. Taking the path of exploration in knowledge is one of the great pleasures of one’s life. What is more American than being self-taught, finding the beauty in greater knowledge and learning and losing yourself in the process of discovery? All it takes is a window cracked open, a door left afar, and off one goes. We merely need inspiration and that slight nudge. But who will nudge us, given that our schools are no longer capable?
I have been blessed in life to have been taken down these paths of historical knowledge which I am still journeying on. A former boss introduced me to Henry Hope Reed’s magisterial classic The Golden City which illuminates the great American Renaissance of classically inspired architecture from 1876 to 1917. Hence, I learnt of Arthur Brown, Daniel Burnham, and so many others, and of the beauty of the classical buildings spreading from Washington D.C. to San Francisco.
A Wall Street Journal article on the Hudson River School led to my discovery of the incredible period of landscape painting in America from about 1825 to 1870, to Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Asher Durand, Frederic Church, and many more. The British historian Paul Johnson remarked that “from the 1820’s there emerged a school of landscape-painting (in America) the like of which the world has never seen.” The paintings are stunning, and awe inspiring in their reach to the heavens. And they are all ours, a part of our American heritage.
Reading Joseph Epstein’s wonderful short book, The Novel, Who Needs It, introduced me to Willa Cather, an early 20th century writer who Epstein considers the greatest American novelist of the 20th century. Not Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, or Steinbeck. Willa Cather. After reading of eight of her novels, I was stunned; Cather’s writing was among the best I have ever read, period. And my initial shock turned to disappointment and anger that I had to wait until the age of 60 to discover this exemplar of American literature.
My intellectual journey throughout midlife made me realize the paucity of my formal education. What have our schools done for us? Since the 1960’s, the Left has led a long march through the institutions, with education serving as the number one target. Bill Ayers, the 1960’s radical terrorist (or at the minimum, lover of terrorists, since his wife is former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn) transformed himself from radical revolutionary to esteemed professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Education. He and hundreds, if not thousands, of others took the same path. All for the purpose of teaching teachers what our children should learn. And we wonder why several generations of citizens have been taught the “Howard Zinn” version of American history.
Does it matter if we are learning of the greatness of American culture? The Founders of America, the early writers and painters, the architects, from Thomas Jefferson on, all thought so. They considered it critical for this new nation to have a distinctive and unique and most importantly, an aspirational culture that would bind and unite us. To inspire us, to help us reach for the divine and aspire to touch the heavens. What makes America exceptional, inspirational, that shining city on the hill, but the people, the land, the art, our stories, writing and canvas. It is our heart.
We are all now sadly aware that, in the infamous words of Barack Obama, the Left is seeking to “radically transform the United States of America.” For them to build their new heaven on earth, and attain their fantasized utopia, they must burn down the house, erase the past and wipe it clean.
In their retelling, America’s birthday no longer is 1776, but 1619. Columbus came to this new land to execute a genocide. America is imperialistic, racist, and sexist, and these sins are baked into its founding. Hence their creation of a self-loathing iteration of American history and culture that infects so many of our citizens. The culture and history of America matter deeply. When we don’t recognize the greatness of our culture and history, when we are taught to hate our own history and myths and stories, then we fracture, we balkanize. We fall apart.
We are fortunate that the path back from the Left’s malicious falsehoods lies all around us. Take to the road and discover this country anew. Read the great books, the poets, visit the State Capitols and let our great buildings inspire you. View the art that projects on canvas the very beauty and inspiration of sea to shining sea.
Most importantly, don’t wait for our failed schools, but teach our children the essence of our nation’s greatness and beauty. The story of our nation and its people is the most fascinating and inspiring that has ever existed in human history. Be proud and embrace it, learn and teach it, and we just may survive the current and future crises that befall us.
