Truth, Justice or The American Way
Still Trying.
If you know Superman like I know Superman, you know that the title of this essay is wrong. It should be Truth, Justice and The American Way, because that’s what mild-mannered Clark Kent was all about. Look around you. We’ve become Gotham City. Some would say that the heart of American is no longer the heartland. They’re not wrong. When is the last time you heard that in public conversation? When is the last time you had a public conversation unmediated by a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate? Starbucks is that too. In spite of that kind of sad resignation, I look beyond what America appears to be with strong ideas about our capabilities.
I am often reminded of the story of young students who were prohibited from bringing their cellphones to class. For a time, they were confused and angry. Soon, freed from addictive distractions, they rediscovered themselves. Their interactions became energetic.
It’s been only one semester since the ban has taken effect, but Roberts says the school’s failure rate has fallen by 30 percent, meaning a full third of students who would have likely flunked a class are now on track to pass. Just as important, he says, is a sound he’s lately been hearing in the school cafeteria, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It’s a sound he says he’d almost forgotten.
“I heard laughter,” he said. “And I mean laughter. And there wasn’t a single phone in sight.”
Overlooking While Overcooking
What I think is going on is that we collectively have given over to a rock star mentality that assumes and asserts that dynamic individuality is more rare than it actually is. It’s not something we have come to expect in ordinary average Americans. We are trying too hard to be exceptional rather than simply unique. We don’t find enough comfort in our unadorned selves. We’re too prickly to be ordinary and fight too hard to be extraordinary. We’re trying to be statistical outliers and in doing so, we have become convinced that the middle isn’t safe.
Thus it seems to be a big deal when we find leveraged ways to simplify or organize our lives. We’re overcooking our attention to gnarly details, grand strategies and secret passageways. We’ve cultivated an insecurity with the straightforward. We’ve forgotten that every pretzel is not twisted. Thus we’re overlooking the simple.
I must admit that I have often done that. Many of my favorites piano pieces are some of the most complex and difficult to play. I am so often drawn to sophistication for its own sake. Yet what I’m starved for is not the company of YouTubers who can explain the obscurities of Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etude Number Ten. I’m starved for simple common decency. Can we admit it? Sometimes you just have to stand out in the cold and say it out loud.
Clark Kent
I don’t have to tell you that Superman has a secret identity. I shouldn’t have to tell you that he grew up on a farm with simple honest folks. He doesn’t go around telling Americans that they have to be saved from themselves. He simply uses his gifts to help people out when they are overwhelmed. He keeps his eyes open and tells the simple truth. Every once in a while he steps up. He tires. He gets beat up. Clark is not cynical. All he needs is sunshine. Not headlines. Not attention. Sometimes he goes to his Fortress of Solitude to disengage. He doesn’t have the answer to the world’s problems; he does what he can.
The story of Superman is simple enough for 12 year old boys. It simply tells us that there are heroes among us. He grew up in the dirt, from Smallville. His entire planet was destroyed. Everyday he knows how different he is from everyone else. So he lives by his virtue in Metropolis knowing how bad it could be. He lives in service to hope, the kind of hope that survives the absolute worst of things.
The American Way
In 1938, before WW2, Superman was written to stand for Truth and Justice, period. A couple years later The American Way was added as we were on the precipice of becoming that world power. By 1958, that was no longer the tagline. I knew Superman from the old TV show, long before he got watered down hanging out with the Super Friends. It’s fair to say that American attitudes and perspectives have changed and you could say The American Way is reflected in what the populists believe.
In the late 1970s, Superman reached his largest and most diverse audience to date with the eponymously named film starring Christopher Reeve. When asked by journalist Lois Lane what he stands for, the Man of Steel affirms, “truth, justice and the American way.” Lane laughs in disbelief. “You’re going to end up fighting every elected official in this country,” she retorts. This revealing moment shows Superman’s sincere belief in old-fashioned American values, while also acknowledging the cynicism of the era. Reeve’s Superman embodied a hopeful, principled hero trying to make people believe in goodness again, even if the world had grown distrustful in post-Watergate America.
It’s hard to imagine Clark Kent working for Facebook and then stepping up for The American Way. Journalism isn’t what it used to be. It was when America was bombed in December of 1941 that the American Way was challenged and we went to the Pacific and Europe to defend ourselves and others.
I want the American Way to be what it meant to that boy from Smallville who took up the cause of truth and justice after his world was destroyed. In the end, we determine what sorts of discipline we will endure for such purposes.
International and Universal
America is a lot bigger than it used to be. In 1940 it was 132 million. 80 years later it was two and a half times more populous. Halfway here, in 1985 we still sang songs like ‘We Are The World’. Somehow we started navel-gazing. I have my theories, but I’m not turning over dead logs to see what crawls out today. It’s OK to say, I don’t know, but I’m still trying. It’s acceptable to face the Kryptonite, that rare element that reduces you and reminds you of your mortality, imposing weakness and undermining your strengths.
If America was destroyed and you had to go live in some other Smallville as a foreigner, you would look for truth and justice and champion that when you could. The process of doing so is transcendent. Maybe your concept in that foreign land would appear to be as impossibly complex as a Liszt etude. So it would force you to be mild-mannered, keeping your eyes open and lending your gifts when you could. That’s not so complicated. You don’t have to overthink that. Simplicity itself.
Local Heroes
I have a tagline for my podcast outro. “May the habits of discipline give you the courage to take the rising path.” I have added to that “See you at the top”. Clark Kent reminds us that it’s enough to be excellent to people where we are. We don’t need to twist ourselves into excruciating contortions of politically resonant signifying. We don’t need to break out the deconstructionist magnifying glass and download 24 years of data to get at the ‘real’ truth. We don’t need to build trillion dollar businesses dedicated to the promise of delivering world-swallowing n-dimensional machine intelligences. Maybe all you need is an art teacher to teach 12 year olds to draw heroic figures. Maybe all you need is a music teacher to teach them to sing in harmony. We have all of that evolution built into us.
Superman is a heavy myth. His is a story that has survived for generations. Music from Star Wars will be with us for generations as well, as will be the simple clarity of folk songs with acoustic guitars. These things are elements of beauty that allow us to be excellent to each other and they are just that easy.
Why do we overcook our attention on obscure matters? Well for one thing the attention economy makes it easy as engaging a swipey finger and keeping our eyes open. You can do that at 3AM with today’s batteries. But also because we’re trying to capture the magic knowledge. We keep telling ourselves that knowledge is power and that is the path to the elusive abstraction called excellence. I’m telling you that you just need to be excellent to other people. That may require a little practice — some of us are still keeping six feet of distance. I’m here to tell you, laughter will return.
Yes AND
To talk about America in the abstract is an American tradition. I don’t think we’ll ever tire of it. One thing I have tired of is the kind of cynicism that pollutes the air. Call it mind pollution. Such pollution can become so commonplace that we forget it could be any other way. It’s OK to admit that you don’t know exactly how or why, but you can see an ugly truth and pursue justice just by being excellent to your fellow Americans. We have done it in so many ways before, not just for ourselves but for our foreign friends and allies.
If this has been a touch inspiring I want to bring in a discordant yet hopefully inspirational note. We are in the midst of a ceasefire with the IRGC regime in Iran, and it’s difficult to say whether or not a proper peace will ensue. But I still think about the tragedy nations suffer under the kind of tyranny that requires external military intervention. If America has become the world’s policeman it is, to my way of thinking, because so many nations live with a poverty of self-defense for the individual. We see it now in Iran, that an oppressive regime can remain in power and crush it unarmed citizens with the simplest of light arms and brutal tactics. Underneath our noses and righteous disgust with the Janjaweed Militia, Sudan was partitioned in two as Islamist purged Christians to the south. Americans see persecuted people all over the world, but we would certainly see less if those people could defend their lives and property by constitutional right.
We cannot forget that the idea of Superman was born in the mind of Jerry Seigel whose family fled from persecution in Europe. Their world was destroyed. They came to an imperfect America with hope in the American Way. Now they are part of our uplifting mythos and ethos, protected by a nation that promises liberty and justice for all. Yes, of course we can have Truth, Justice and the American Way. If truth and justice are to prevail, that must be the American Way.
Be excellent to each other. You know how.