I viewed my country through the eyes of a boy and teenager growing up in a small town in rural Iowa. Nothing wrong with that, neither then nor now. It’s just that I did not personally know, experience, or see my country through the eyes of anyone who grew up somewhere else.
But I was raised in a family that was quite aware of and concerned about the world beyond our home town and county. And I had a feeling (which has occasionally been confirmed throughout my life) that we in rural Iowa knew more about city folk than city folk knew about us. Our news, our movies, our music, and most of the things we consumed were funneled to us through urban cultures.
The country I grew up in had come through a Depression that my parents and their generation remembered and would remind us of upon the least provocation. There were differences of opinion about what had been done by our government to get us back to prosperity, and heated debates continued about the role of government now that prosperity had returned. Through it all we remained personally cordial with those who saw things differently than we did and thought name-calling was very wrong, at least in public.
As the decade of global economic depression finally wound down, the country I grew up in had eventually led what was called the free world (ignoring our Soviet ally’s lack of freedom) in defeating Germany and Japan and their forces of tyranny, hatred, and racism. My country had followed up that victory by feeding our former enemies and by helping them establish democratic, rule-of-law governments. My country became the home of the headquarters of the newly-established United Nations in the belief that, if nations working together, the world would never again experience anything like the 20th century’s two World Wars.
The country I grew up in wondered what had gone wrong in Germany between those wars. How could one man take over one of Europe’s most enlightened and educated nations? There were very good explanations out there, but we were not much interested them because nothing like that could ever happen in our fair, free, ideal-driven, law-abiding, prosperous country, the leader of the free world.
It was easy for many of us to feel positive about all other people—Jews, Negroes, homosexuals, etc.—and to be idealistic about everyone getting along with everyone else because we hardly ever encountered personally people who were all that “different" from us, at least not that we recognized or acknowledged. Though some of us were poorer and others of us were better off, we could hardly imagine the extremes of wealth and poverty that divide so much of the world.
The country I grew up in really believed that all people were created equal. Every single person deserved a shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But my country was often so idealistic about that ideal that it blinded us to our realities. We liked the idea that everyone in our country should be able to chart their own path, but we were seriously concerned that some people wanted to start walking that path before the time was right for them to do so. They should be patient. In a strange but earnest balancing act, we tried to stoke the fire of our ideals with the waters of not yet.
The country I grew up in believed in the rule of law, not the rule of men. We believed that no one was above the law, and that those who were elected to lead us had actually been elected to serve us and our laws, from the Constitution on down. We absolutely believed that our elections were fair and honest (up north, anyway, except in Chicago), and that those who lost them would always graciously give place to those who had won them.
In the country I grew up in, a bill became a law just the way the little chart in the civics text showed it did. We knew of lobbyists, but we also knew their impact was countered in the minds and hearts of our lawmakers by their solemn commitment to the people who had elected them.
Those legislators also knew that they they had been elected to serve all the people living in their state or district, not just the interests of those who’d voted for them. Those who had not voted for them did not lose access to them just because of their vote. And anyway, who really knew how anyone had voted in the privacy of the voting booth? You might even win over someone who disagreed with you if you showed real interest in and respect for them. It was how our government worked in the country I grew up in.
I could write more, but I hope by now my point is clear: the country I grew up in is far different from the country I am living in 65 years later. We are much inclined to isolationism, to taking care of ourselves first and last, to communicating only with those who agree with us anyway, to serving party interest over national interest. A sizable number of us hope to entrust our nation’s future to a man who is openly disdainful of democracy itself, who wants the United States to rule the world through fear and threat, not lead the world as first among equals. Our ideals are largely in ruins for many, hammered from both the right and the left. We seem to be in survival mode, terrorized by the very hopes and ideals that helped us become who we are.
Six decades of living from west coast to east and since 1989 back to the middle again have taught me I will never again see my country through the mid-20th century rural Iowa eyes I grew up with. At the same time, I can never see my country without some influence by those youthful lenses. They’re still in my head somewhere.
The country I grew up, imperfect as it was, is being replaced by something far worse: a country that is tense, driven by fears, unsure of itself and its democracy, and cynical about ideals that hold promise for all.
Can we somehow get back to a wiser version of what we were in the country I grew up in? I sincerely believe we can if we are willing to try to renew our mutual trust and work together at it.
