As it may or may not be known from my ramblings, my best friend Nina took me to see THE BOSS and his E Street Band yesterday for a post-birthday present. Needless to say, it was all sorts of emotional.
As we were sitting on the couch that night, our conversation rambled on its course to a discussion about the ways and reasons that people, especially in our generation, do not like - even reject - Bruce Springsteen. We tried to make sense of this, because to us Springsteen communicates everything that is the American experience. How could you not connect to his music? We came up with two main reasons - one is that an individual does not bother to give Springsteen a chance because he isn’t hip enough, is too old, has been co-opted by the government and capitalism, et cetera. The other reason is that, because he is an AMERICAN icon, he is rejected. It’s cool these days to hate being American.
Now, I’m certainly not trying to say that our country doesn’t do things that are disgraceful, disgusting, absolutely awful, or distasteful. However, I also refuse to say that we live in a terrible place. We can’t let the commodification culture speak for ourselves, and certainly the slobbering and corrupted masses that we so despise cannot stand in for the beautiful, diverse, hard working people that live every day as Americans. Somewhere along the lines of the past few decades capitalism and the white-collar worker have transformed American identity to mean greed and deception, and with that cultural co-optation of identity came a sense of disgust among the people who refused to buy into that culture.
As a reaction to this shift in national identity (and especially among radicals and punks and marginalized folks) we learned to ignore or reject the American part of our identity. We didn’t ever care to analyze the American ethos. We didn’t care to discover the goodness about our national identity. And I know it is hard, it’s so hard sometimes to see the good when we’re surrounded by corruption and hate and all we really feel is disgust. We should not turn our cheek to those parts of this nation’s identity, either. But I believe there is pride to be found somewhere in there, too. I don’t mean flag-waving nationalism, I mean the sense of contentment and comfort that can be discovered when you realize how deeply connected you are to where you are.
To me, being American is having those feelings that Bruce Springsteen describes so well in his songs… that wild desperation, those desires, that hunger to live and work and love. And, quite frankly, it’s just hard for me to understand when people aren’t moved by that.
Also, this:
