Building an America We Are Proud Of

What thoughts are ruling our world?

Oct 22, 2024

The late English writer R.C. Sherriff had a talent for depicting the mundane in a way that celebrated life. His writing, characterized by an understated style, provides a deep understanding of human nature.

In his 1931 novel, The Fortnight In September, he tells the story of a lower-middle-class family taking their annual holiday at a rundown guest house in an English seaside village. He delves into the inner thoughts of his main characters. The oldest son, Dick, is feeling “ashamed of his job—ashamed of his old school.”

Dick berates himself for being “disloyal” and thinks his disloyalty is “the very core of his unhappiness.” He has the thought, “If he were to avoid being a lonely outsider he must pretend all his life to be proud of what in his heart he secretly despised—of what he knew was second rate—not good enough.”

Dick then questions his understanding of the “meaning of loyalty.” If he were to remain loyal to his school, must he “drown all native pride and crush himself to a level from which he could look up at the pitiful little standard set for him to serve?—even if he knew beyond doubt that a prouder standard should be his?”

With a shift in his attention, Dick realizes, “He had got the wrong idea about this loyalty business—loyalty didn’t mean a passive cringing to something second rate: it meant a tremendous determination to raise the things he was connected with to a finer level.”

Have Americans gotten the loyalty business all wrong? Are we grasping the “second rate” when we rely on politics to lift us?

We are the ones, not politicians, who will build an America we are proud of.

If our task seems daunting, then we should begin with our mindset. In 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In that address, “Progress of Culture,” Emerson explained, “Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.”

So, what thoughts are ruling our world?

In an essay in psychologist David K. Reynolds’ Constructive Living Highlights, former Stanford drama professor and improv teacher Patricia Ryan Madson asks readers to notice “the outlay of energy expended everywhere all day by the act of criticizing, complaining and venting negative thoughts.”

Madson wonders, “What if, instead of voicing criticism or complaining … each of us used the same amount of time to DO SOMETHING constructive?” What are those constructive actions?

If I picked up a single piece of trash for every time I complained about someone else, the world would be a better place. I am arguing for two things: Talk less (especially useless complaints and negative reflections) and Do more. Do more good. Tiny constructive actions. Clean something. Put something back in order. Contribute a single dollar to a cause you believe in. Help a friend. Send a thank you note. These are tiny actions, doable at any moment.

I would add to Madson’s list this mindset shift: Make kindness a priority. Be kind to people you encounter today: the supermarket cashier, the customer service rep, colleagues, family, and neighbors. While we may be lost in thought about our problematical circumstances, they may be struggling with their own.

We can’t escape negativity on the news or social media. Yet, Madson points out, “Our opinions and commentary on the world … does nothing to change our reality.”

Madson is not saying that who we elect doesn’t matter. Nor is she saying to sing Kumbaya and act as if bad ideas don’t matter. She calls us to prioritize what is in our sphere of influence.

Reynolds advises us to ask, “Here is the situation; I don’t like it; what can I do to change it?”

Accepting reality is the first step in making changes. Reality is that no politician can singlehandedly save America from decades of ruinous spending, foreign military adventures, and an educational system captured by radicals teaching ideas inimical to human flourishing.

If the path forward is not through politicians, like Dick, we can be determined to “lift to a finer level” the things we are “connected with.”

As parents, are we also teaching our children at home? If not, can we pay close attention to the curriculum our children are exposed to and make our dissent heard? Can we make diet and exercise a higher priority to lessen our reliance on failing medical institutions that aggressively promote pharmaceuticals? Can we offer our help to our elderly neighbor?

I can go on. A fixation on politics crowds out needed actions and does nothing to change reality.

Distress is high in America. Reynolds says we can use such feelings as warning signs to return “us to the here and now.” Feeling that distress, we can complain, or we can build an America we are proud of. America’s greatness can only reflect the ideals Americans hold dear in their hearts.

This essay was originally published at Intellectual Takeout.

The Fortnight in September is about the boring things we do and our mundane thoughts, yet it is a compelling page-turner. I realize this may sound impossible, but it's precisely why Sheriff is still in print a century later. Fortnight is the perfect book to read at night when you want to put your mind in neutral.