Progressives Need Better Stories

How do you feel about these “secular saints” candles? Are they a funny joke? A cringe Millennial trend? The desperate grasping of a culture that has lost its way?

I’ll admit, I’ve owned a few of these (Harriet Tubman, RBG.) My husband received a Jeff Bezos one as a gag gift that I keep threatening to smash.

This is one of the problems with living heroes—they keep revealing problematic behavior. It’s why every Tesla bumper in Seattle now looks like this:

Maybe this is why Roman Catholics require at least 5 years pass before canonization can begin, time for all the skeletons to emerge from a potential saint’s closet.

And yet, the recent revelations about labor organizer Cesar Chavez have shown that it can take a long time (33 years in this case) for the dark truth about a “hero” to come out.

For years we’ve been having a conversation about how to deal with heroes who have done monstrous things. Is it still okay to listen to Michael Jackson? Watch Roman Polanski movies? Ought we still have statues of great American statesmen who also enslaved African Americans or slaughtered Indigenous Peoples?

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Many conservatives seem intent to put their fingers in their ears and stress that it was a different time, that Thomas Jefferson, for instance, couldn’t possibly have known that it was wrong to father children with his teenaged slave, Sally Hemings, then enslave those children until their early adulthood.

(To be sure, many white American men at that time had no problems with this arrangement, which was common enough to have the moniker “shadow family.” Nevertheless, abolition has always been part of American political thought. The truth is always out there, if you know who to listen to.)

On the other hand, liberals have been anxious to be seen tearing down our national mythology without anything to replace them with. Remember when the San Francisco Board of Education spent the pandemic debating school names instead of, you know, focusing on reopening schools?

It’s important to be able to grapple honestly with our history and culture. At the same time, I wonder: what does it mean to be American without The American Dream? Without glazing George Washington and his ilk?

Where are the stories that a multicultural, multiracial, religiously plural society can unite around? The more polarized we become, the harder it is to find common ground.

It seems to me there’s a hunger for mythology and heroes, whether it’s the eight billion movies in The Avengers franchise or the enduring popularity of Greek mythology.

And I do think we need common stories. Whereas lectures and laws dictate, stories invite us in. They have a way of sneaking past our defenses and engaging us at an emotional level—we empathize with the characters and find ourselves weighing moral questions we would never otherwise consider.

Stories are also not black-and-white. As any English teacher worth their salt would tell you, stories ask us to bring our lived experience and external knowledge to our interpretations. In discussing stories together, we learn to question our preconceived notions and see through others’ eyes.

I mean, it’s no coincidence that beloved religious teachers like Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad taught in parables and analogies.

But the problem with idolizing living folks is the “man in the hole” problem. I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut who said there are basically two story structures: man falls into a hole, and man climbs out of a hole. In either case, you need a change in status—the lowly are elevated, the lofty are brought low.

Maybe human beings simply aren’t fit for life on the pedestal. If Martin Luther is right, we are each sinners and each saints. This duality, or “and-ness” as I like to call it, can’t be ignored for long. Saints will disappoint and sinners will surprise. Maybe we need gods and mythologies.

At any rate, if the Left is going to win the culture war against Christian Nationalism, we need a grander illustration of moral imagination.

What do you think? Do we have common stories/heroes anymore? Who would be on your personal Mount Rushmore of great Americans?

As always, I love to hear your thoughts, ramblings, pushback, and recommendations in the comments or via email/DM.

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BONUS MATERIALS:

* Ugh the Cesar Chavez revelations…still, this article provides some interesting context

* ICYMI, this podcast is a reliable hit with the kiddos

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