If there was ever a time for a plainspoken, avuncular wise voice to remind us of the shared path that has bound us as Americans, and remind us how much has shifted (in how we absorb news, and how we have blurred the opinion vs objective news separation, and how we too easily now conflate nationalism with national ideals) the time is now. We seem as a people to have wholeheartedly forgotten a pathway from a shared past and accepted the forces that separate us.
Dan Rather What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism is an autobiography constructed as a civics lesson. Respectfully, there isn’t really much in this book that wasn’t taught by several of my excellent public school teachers 30 years ago—when a generation in this country still seemed to highly value a shared educational/social experience of public schools and understood how that experience contributed to democracy, a strong economy and a sense of “being in it together” as much as any war ever did. Having to learn to get along in the melting pot of public schools, while sharing common messages from respected and respectful news outlets today must seem as quaint to most Americans as book reading. The book, like the ideals and norms that have bound us, are not complicated.
In another way, What Unites Us reads as a kind of act of political prayer from an elder statesman to a country that has lost its center (for all that implies).
With chapters entitled The Vote, Dissent, The Press, followed by chapters Inclusion, Empathy, Immigration, Science, Books, The Arts, Rather contemplates the community norms that have “steadied” us. Rather continues with chapters on The Environment, Public Education, Service, and then Audacity, Steady and Courage to round out the book. One is reminded by that progression of chapters how a reductive focus on Constitutionality and “the role of government” weakens the broad base of norms on which a society is built. Much of how we behave towards each other is not dictated by law, but by these norms. Rather seeks to remind us that while many of our ideals are written in and spring from the Constitution, that we seem bent on unbuilding and forgetting these other factors that bind us as a people. (Forgive echoes of Obi-Wan Kenobi describing “the Force” here.) Rather reveals some of the forces actively at work seeking & succeeding to separate us. While the separating may gain some fleeting advantage, reading What Unites Us it is apparent that we seem unable to see those forces or recall what they are eroding.
Some of Rather’s most moving personal stories surround his observing the courage shown in defending inclusion at the polls. Being raised in Houston, he shares his ignorance with regard to the challenges of poverty and race while growing up. In The Vote chapter, Rather notes, “We need elected officials who represent wide swaths of the population, not narrow gerrymandered silos. Our republic relies on a marketplace of ideas, but creating safe seats for both Republicans and Democrats removes the very competition for votes that is the heart of democracy.” He unpacks how some of that has occurred.
Those of us of a certain age may be forgiven for Rathers’ delivery evoking a time when the line between news and opinion had not been broken. I don’t mean to get all Leave-it-to-Beaver about this book. Dan Rather has not written another nostalgic sop to the Greatest Generation. What Unites Us tells reflective stories about our country centred around norms and ideals that need re-telling. It reminds me of how the culture was once passed down for generations—by many storytellers, and many retellings. History and telling of difficult stories have been the rudder for many a culture.
I listened to this book on CD from the local library and then bought it at a bookstore in Frisco and re-read it so I could take notes. That probably tells you as much about me as the book. Today seems like an important time for many of us to go back to being students, and embodying what is required of a student – observation skills, listening, patience and taking the time to process for yourself, then having to share what you have learned, and take in the lessons of others who have gleaned other wisdoms. Our point in time does not seem to reward those behaviours.
Rather closes the book by saying, “I believe strongly that the core tenants I love most about this nation can be a foundation for commonality and strength once more. I believe in a wide and expansive vision of our national destiny. And I believe in all of you to help make it a reality. Courage.”
I suspect from the “specially bound” and hand signed edition of What Unites Us from Algonquin books that Dan Rather understands that forms of communicating have changed. The underlying unspoken message is that the country is in a crisis. His messages are well sent, though in spite of finishing on a note of faith, What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism is no battle cry. In fact, I finished it deeply concerned and not sure where to begin as a citizen. Book readers who value civics, unite.
