What Sin Does Hrothgar Caution Beowulf to Avoid?
This might seem a very strange fourth dimension to publish a book recommending that we read the voices from the by. Afterwards all, isn't the present hammering at our door rather violently? There'south a worldwide pandemic; a presidential election is about to consume the attention of America; and if all that weren't sufficient, nosotros are entering hurricane season. The present is keeping the states plenty busy. Who has time for the past?
Simply my statement is that this is precisely the kind of moment when we need to take some time to step back from the fire hose of alarming news. (When I outset tried to type fire hose, I accidentally typed dire hose instead. Indeed.) As we endeavor to manage our dispositions, we need two things. Starting time, nosotros need perspective; second, nosotros demand tranquility. And it's voices from the past that can give us both—even when they say things we don't want to hear, and when those voices belong to people who have done bad things. One of the best guides I know to such an encounter with the past is Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, America's most passionately eloquent advocate for the abolition of slavery.
In Rochester, New York, on July four, 1852, Douglass gave a speech called "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," and it is equally fine an example of reckoning wisely with a troubling past as I have ever read. He begins by acknowledging that the Founders "were peachy men," though he immediately goes on to say, "The point from which I am compelled to view them is non, certainly, the nigh favorable; and nevertheless I cannot contemplate their groovy deeds with less than admiration." Yes: Douglass is compelled to view them in a critical light, because their failure to eradicate slavery at the nation's founding led to his own enslavement, led to his being beaten and abused and denied every human right, forced him to alive in bondage and in fear until he could at long last brand his escape. Nevertheless, "for the expert they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with y'all to honor their retention."
What, for Douglass, fabricated the Founders worthy of honor? Well, "they loved their country better than their own private interests," which is practiced; though they were "peace men," "they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage," which is very good, and indeed true of Douglass himself; and "with them, nothing was 'settled' that was non right," which is first-class. Perhaps best of all, "with them, justice, freedom and humanity were 'final'; not slavery and oppression." Therefore, "y'all may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation."
In their mean solar day and generation. Just what they achieved, though astonishing in its time, can no longer be accounted adequate. Indeed, it never could take been so deemed, because they did not alive up to the principles they so powerfully celebrated. They announced a "final"—that is, an absolute, a nonnegotiable—delivery to justice, liberty, and humanity, only even those who did not ain slaves themselves negotiated abroad the rights of Black people. Then Douglass must say these blunt words: "This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."
I wonder whether I can even imagine what it cost Douglass to speak as warmly equally he did of the Founders. In his autobiography, he describes a moment when he was 12 years one-time and came beyond a book containing a fictional dialogue between a slave and his possessor. "The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other low-cal than a ring of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange state reduced us to slavery. I loathed them equally existence the meanest as well equally the most wicked of men." The Founders could non have been exempt from this loathing: After all, many of them endemic slaves, and others tolerated their slave-owning, They deserved denunciation no less than the men who had claimed ownership of Douglass. And still, in his Rochester speech, he conquered his indignation sufficiently to say: "They were keen in their 24-hour interval and generation."
Decades ago, I read an essay by a feminist literary critic named Patrocinio Schweickart about how feminists should read misogynistic texts from the by. She counseled them to face the misogyny only likewise to wait for what she called the "utopian moment" in such texts, an "accurate kernel" of human experience that can be shared and celebrated. I remember that's what Douglass does. He has every reason, given what their sins and follies cost him and his Black sisters and brothers, to dismiss the Founders wholly, but he does not. "They were great in their day and generation."
It would be utterly unfair to demand of anyone wounded as Douglass was wounded the charity he exhibits hither. I would not ever dare to ask it. That he speaks as warmly of the Founders as he does strikes me as little less than a miracle. But this fair-mindedness was integral to Douglass's massive success as an orator, equally a persuader of the half-convinced and the faint of centre. He knew how to sift, to assess, to render and reflect once more. The idealization and demonization of the past are equally easy, and immensely tempting in our tense and frantic moment. What Douglass offers instead is a model of negotiating with the by in a way that gives charity and honesty equal weight. This is why I say that, when confronted by the sins of the past, Frederick Douglass should be our model.
Reading those figures from the past, even when he disagreed strongly with them, gave him some perspective on his own moment, and, because they left this vale of tears, some tranquility as well. Later on all, the dead don't talk back to us—unless we invite them to. We control the encounter. We decide whether to pay our ancestors attention.
When we make that payment, when we turn aside from the "dire hose" and take a few deep breaths and enter into the world of the by, nosotros can at-home our pulse a bit, have time to recollect. No i demands anything of us. Those figures from the past are willing to speak to the states when we are willing to listen. They may sometimes speak words of offense, simply they may likewise speak words of wisdom that we either never know or take forgotten.
Two thousand years agone, the Roman poet Horace wrote a poesy letter to a friend. "Interrogate the writings of the wise," he advised, "Request them to tell you how you can / Go through your life in a peaceable tranquil mode." It was adept advice then and it's practiced communication now.
This mail service is adapted from Jacobs's recent book, Breaking Staff of life With the Expressionless: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Listen.
morseasereardscon.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/hate-sinner-not-book/616066/
0 Response to "What Sin Does Hrothgar Caution Beowulf to Avoid?"
Postar um comentário