Me, too. I think the true beauty of heroism - and why humanity across most cultures is fascinated by it - is that ordinary, flawed & weak people are capable of such great things. I collect stories of heroes like "The Man In That Water" - an Essay by Roger Rosenblatt for Time magazine.
Looking at American History and its social strugg…
Me, too. I think the true beauty of heroism - and why humanity across most cultures is fascinated by it - is that ordinary, flawed & weak people are capable of such great things. I collect stories of heroes like "The Man In That Water" - an Essay by Roger Rosenblatt for Time magazine.
Looking at American History and its social struggles - often bloody & devastating - I think of NASA's Apollo 13 mission, in which an oxygen tank blew and thwarted the Mission and jeopardized the Astronauts' lives Many see that event as a horrible embarrassment for NASA - but many engineers and astronauts call it "One of NASA's finest hours ." (BTW: the Hollywood movie does not do it justice)
The USA was 'born' into a world with slavery, racism, classism & xenophobia and hence had these "original sins" from the beginning. You cannot judge a baby by the circumstances of its birth - but you can tell a lot about a young person's character by how they respond to the discovery of great wrongs - especially those in which it is complicit. The USA almost destroyed itself in a devastating war to resolve an intractable problem: how can a nation founded on liberty allow slavery? (Certainly there is much more to the Civil War than that, but in the end, 1 Union soldier died for every 10 slaves that were freed - a high price in anyone's book). How many nations in history have almost torn themselves apart to resolve such a moral dilemma? That is not the sole example: there are many examples of America realizing that it is not 'living up to' its ideals correcting course - even if that correction comes with great pain.
Winston Churchill said:
"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else."
What more can you ask of a bunch of flawed humans? (And these critics with their oafish way of addressing social injustice are an obstacle to improving without much pain!)
Me, too. I think the true beauty of heroism - and why humanity across most cultures is fascinated by it - is that ordinary, flawed & weak people are capable of such great things. I collect stories of heroes like "The Man In That Water" - an Essay by Roger Rosenblatt for Time magazine.
Looking at American History and its social struggles - often bloody & devastating - I think of NASA's Apollo 13 mission, in which an oxygen tank blew and thwarted the Mission and jeopardized the Astronauts' lives Many see that event as a horrible embarrassment for NASA - but many engineers and astronauts call it "One of NASA's finest hours ." (BTW: the Hollywood movie does not do it justice)
The USA was 'born' into a world with slavery, racism, classism & xenophobia and hence had these "original sins" from the beginning. You cannot judge a baby by the circumstances of its birth - but you can tell a lot about a young person's character by how they respond to the discovery of great wrongs - especially those in which it is complicit. The USA almost destroyed itself in a devastating war to resolve an intractable problem: how can a nation founded on liberty allow slavery? (Certainly there is much more to the Civil War than that, but in the end, 1 Union soldier died for every 10 slaves that were freed - a high price in anyone's book). How many nations in history have almost torn themselves apart to resolve such a moral dilemma? That is not the sole example: there are many examples of America realizing that it is not 'living up to' its ideals correcting course - even if that correction comes with great pain.
Winston Churchill said:
"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else."
What more can you ask of a bunch of flawed humans? (And these critics with their oafish way of addressing social injustice are an obstacle to improving without much pain!)