Looking to the words of JFK for guidance
What does it mean to be an American, and how can we answer this question amid the historic division in our country?
Pew Research charts polarization among American citizens with nearly half of voters from each main political party viewing the other party as a threat to the nation. This division is tragic and unproductive for our political process, but maybe we can look to the past to find a more cooperative way forward.
This month marks the 58th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Although Kennedy won the 1960 election, with 303 electoral votes to Richard Nixon’s 219, Kennedy would average an approval rating of 70 percent, higher than any other president since. Of course, his presidency was cut short, but I think this high approval rating is a testament to how he spoke to the American public. Kennedy tapped into a particular idealism that no president has matched since. I don’t think any president since has spoken of concepts of virtue, civic duty and populist government as well as President Kennedy did. Today his iconic words appeal to a particular liberal nostalgia for a time when the idea that government could be a positive force in a community was more commonly held by Americans.
Can government be a force for good or is it every man for himself?
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country will do for you, ask what you can do for your country. And to my fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of Man.”
— President Kennedy, inaugural address, 1961
Americans, in theory at least, live under a democratic-republic, which means that we (the citizens) supposedly manage our governments. This citizen-management places emphasis on public education — citizens need to take initiatives to understand what their communities need and how collective programs can assist in fulfilling those needs. Public education involves more than established schooling facilities; it also includes personal interactions between us as citizens, with an interest in educating both ourselves and our neighbors. The word “politics” is derived from its Greek root “politika,” meaning “affairs of the city.” To be political simply means to be concerned with your neighbors, and it is within each of our interests to foster a curiosity toward issues that affect ourselves and our neighbors. Civics,
responsibility, virtue; President Kennedy encapsulated these concepts in his inaugural speech.
“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe. The belief that the rights of Man come not from the generosity of the State but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution.”
Religious terms aside, these words cast humanity as one family struggling to unite under one banner in the name of liberty. President Kennedy was ahead of his time in his broad ambitions for our species as a whole.
But Americans today remain far from this vision of unity. Advances in computing technology have isolated Americans into ideological silos, where conversations are insular and circular. We can communicate with people halfway around the world with the push of a button but most of us do not know the name of the person who lives right next to us. This is a crisis of community represented by the so-called “epidemic of loneliness” afflicting us. We are starving ourselves intellectually by cutting ourselves off from the people around us.
Desert communities such as Taos have unique opportunities for social development because of the encapsulating nature of the land. Bordering and isolating, desert people have even more to gain by maintaining strong neighborly connections with each other. Natural barriers like the Sangre de Cristos and the Rio Grande Gorge sectionalize and shelter specific groups of humans, giving us convenient social connections with which to survive as if the land itself encourages neighborly kinship.
To conclude with a question: How can Taos become more unified, as envisioned by great American idealists, like the late President Kennedy?