Gross National Happiness, Pt. 1

The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in DC is featuring Texas, NASA, and Bhutan this year. Even more intriguing to me than the fact that NASA has been included as a folklife specimen, was the focus on Bhutan. I’ve read a couple of articles on the country recently that really peaked my interest. Isolated from the rest of the world for decades, Bhutan has recently begun to open its blinds to the lights of Bollywood, the world wide web, and you guessed it- the It Girl of the new millennium- popular democracy. (Natural light they have in fact had in abundance all along, as they are, in the Himalayas, quite close to the sun and pretty free as of yet from shadow-mongering high rises.)

Besides its recent elections, which have continued the reign of the popular 29-year-old King and added to his ranks a new and apparently very loyal Parliament, Bhutan’s growth indicators have also been in the news. Officially, the government is dedicated to, among other things, the growth of Gross National Happiness. The country is famed, to the extent a relatively unknown country can be, for the happiness of its people. This seems fitting for a Buddhist kingdom with a pseudonym that sounds like a theme park attraction- Land of the Thunder Dragon!- but it probably would not be corroborated by the country’s thousands of Hindu refugees in neighboring India. (Oh, if only we were still simple beasts, allowed to wallow in our own homogeny!)

Most thought-prompting, though, was an interview I heard with a Bhutanese man I think was a kind of Buddhist radio talk show host. He described the recent exposure of Bhutan to capitalism and the like, but also the accompanying decrease in individual happiness it brought with it. Now, cursed with the fruit of knowledge and faced with increasingly more choices, the Bhutanese have joined the modern throngs of dissatisfied more-wanters. Happiness, he explained, was very simple. It is to be satisfied with one’s life.

Having been unhappy in my life, and more importantly having been happy, I immediately agreed with this sentiment. But just as immediately, the phrasing of it disappointed my American pursuit of happiness instincts. I’ve always appreciated the drive that comes from a sort of perpetual dissatisfaction, of never being done. But was the active pursuit of more and better at odds with happiness itself? Well, it would depend on what your more and better refer to. If you’re only trying to keep up with the Joneses, then yes, it probably is at odds with finding some real piece of happiness. But if we’re talking about pursuing true goals of self-actualization and hopes&dreams-realization, then the answer must be no, No, NO!

So how do we reconcile our now twin aims of quiet, daily satisfaction and avid, undying, do-on’t stop be-lie-evin’ pursuit of happiness? As I find is usually the case, you can have it both ways. You take your means and you make them your ends. You draw up your list, but you count your blessings. Because like all good life axioms, they are both are true; seemingly irreconcilable, but mysteriously, wonderfully… not.

Stars & Stripes Forever

Someone gave me a last minute ticket to see John Updike speak this week at the Annual Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities.  It was quite informative, if a little boring.  I haven’t read any John Updike, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the topic sounded quite interesting: What’s American About American Art.  I left without the answer I was looking for, but I did pick up some good information on early American painting.

I arrived just before it began, but the people I was with got there early and saved me a pretty good seat.  The “President’s own” Marine Corp band was on stage playing some intro music, and the house was packed.  I was a little surprised to see the band, but more surprised to hear a voice ask us all to rise for the Presentation of the Colors and the playing of the National Anthem.  Four marines marched the length of the aisle and, at center stage, snapped to attention one by one.  The third man slowly lowered the Stars and Stripes to about 45 degrees, and, after half a pause, the band began to play.  Along with my companions, a small group of secretaries a good deal older than me, I sang along quietly. Many others in the audience were singing too, raising a low hum beneath the brass.  And, as is often the case with me during these little moments of collective expression, I cried a little.

The circumstances had taken me by surprise.  You expect this exercise of dutiful patriotism at ball games and the Olympics, or on special occasions.  But here, in an auditorium, before a lecture, it felt oddly surreal.  Perfectly ordinary because everyone knew the drill- stand up, hats off, (pretend to) sing along.  But also perfectly bizarre, because the seamlessness suggested we sang the Anthem every day, before any such public meeting- like how we’d started every day in elementary school by saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sometime in 2004 or 2005, I sat, as I often did, listening to C-Span radio in my kitchen.  I don’t recall the topic of the hour, but a German woman called in and talked about how wonderful it was to see in America a people so proud of their flag.  She described how in Germany, the nationalist exuberance that had led to the Holocaust was followed by a shame of patriotism and the banning of flag-flying and other public displays.  She regretted not having been able to freely celebrate her homeland, and admired the open love of country that could be exhibited in the U.S.

Back then, as the pretense and short-sightedness of our Iraqi invasion became more and more obvious, and as some of us began to fear the real possibility of religious war, I said to my radio: Lady, don’t you see!?  This is the same blind nationalism that led to catastrophe and mass murder in Europe.  Americans too should be ashamed of themselves.

But now, offended by both the increasingly stale über-patriotism of the Right, and the over-ripe self-loathing of the Left, I find myself alienated by both; longing to simply love my country.  While I find no identification with the kind of unerring nationalism that depends for its strength on superiority and exclusivity, I also find myself reflexively defending America whether she deserves it or not- seething at the self-righteousness of Europeans, and hating the unnuanced, broadstroked opposition of my peers.

When I mentioned this to a friend recently, he told me a similar reactionary sentiment was believed to be responsible for the resurgence of Neo-Nazism in Germany.  As the C-Span caller had described, denied every avenue for national pride save guilt, the dispossessed youth yanked the pendulum back again.  This was a response to a legally imposed prohibition on patriotic expression, and it’s hardly likely that I could morph into an American Neo-Nazi, but I admit that it may be an answer to the same struck chord. I want to be proud of my country and I’m frustrated with my options.  And rather than freaking out, I’ll strive for a sort of measured Critical Patriotism; wherein the critique grows out of love for country, and the aim is its betterment.  

Seven Score and Three Years Ago…

Today marks the 143rd anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (tomorrow marks his death), and a friend and I went to the National Portrait Gallery for a talk on “The Lincoln Assassination in Memory and Myth.” The speaker was James L. Swanson, who wrote a book I haven’t read called: Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. Swanson was a good speaker and told the story of the assassination through a series of vignettes surrounding the event. He laid out the scenes in vivid detail and quoted contemporary figures at length, both to great effect. Through the first part of his talk at least I don’t think I moved, listening right down to my toes.

I didn’t appreciate many of his conclusions, though. Not because I questioned his history. I wouldn’t and couldn’t presume to do so. And nor do I think any of his history was bad. But I did question his motives. He seemed to want to set the record straight, not so the facts would be clear, but so his audience would feel the way he wanted them to feel about the assassination and the assassin.

The aim of the talk was to bust many of the myths surrounding Lincoln’s death, and the “myth” he thought most damaging was the aura surrounding John Wilkes Booth himself. Swanson lamented the fact that it was Booth’s face and not Lincoln’s he saw pointing tourists toward the Ford’s Theatre. “We wouldn’t put Lee Harvey Oswald’s face on signs directing us to the Book Depository in Dallas,” he chided us. “We wouldn’t put a picture of James Earl Ray outside the Lorraine Hotel,” he shamed. Well, I think that’s probably true. But does Swanson think we are intrigued by the story and personality of Booth because we are somehow misremembering our history? Does he think we forgot he was the bad guy?

Americans positively revere Abraham Lincoln. And we are fascinated by John Wilkes Booth. Our simultaneous attraction to both these men is not in the least inconsistent. Swanson worried that his own book, which largely focused on the killer and not on Lincoln, might have leant more credence to the “myth” of Booth. That he was what? Human? Possibly admirable? Probably sympathetic? And what if he was? We do no dishonor to Lincoln by wondering about the life and mind of Booth. And really we do no disservice to ourselves by tying our history up in myth and legend.

After all, Lincoln himself exists as much in legend as in reality. As far as I’ve read, he split rails to build a total of one fence, he grew that beard because it was all the rage in Washington, and he was a mild racist who thought we should colonize Central America with our newly freed slaves. And he was a genuinely good man and a political genius whom we have to thank for the very existence of our country. And his story does not exist without that of John Wilkes Booth. So be it.