Red, green and white. Put it up???
The Independence “season” done now. And in many hearts and minds here, blue, yellow and black have turned into the colours of Christmas. Just so.
What, therefore, has November, the Independence anniversary month, schooled us in?
Do we now have more purpose, more resolve, more commitment to nation goals?
I doubt it. It’s more like we simply changed clothes.
And it is not so much that we were overtaken by the monolithic nature of Christmas. Seems to me that anything would have overrun the other spirit, such as it is.
You see, November has turned out be a yearly zeroing in on only our differentness, repeated indoctrinations in what I will loosely call folkways (music, customs, food, artefacts, dialect, etcetera).
So when November’s end comes and some folkways are moved out of the line of sight and hearing, it is easy to change the suit of circumstance. Like chameleons. Nothing nation-critical has changed.
Some will say that this attention to differentness generates self-esteem – and I would not deny there is some benefit in that. But there is a lot of armchair mythology about the virtues of self-esteem.
Reputable studies (Baumeister et al. (2003) being the most exhaustive and perhaps the most reliable) indicate that high self-esteem does not cause better performance or sounder character or better lifestyle choices.
Check this out: In an international study (LaPointe, Mean, and Philips, 1989) assessing competency in maths and self-image about maths performance, Koreans scored highest in proficiency but lowest in self-image, while Americans scored lowest in proficiency but highest in self-image.
Interestingly, some Purdue University researchers compared the problem-solving performance of low-esteem and high-esteem individuals and found that “the higher the self-esteem, the poorer the performance”.
Outside of solid accomplishment, Baumeister and others demonstrate, what some interpret as high self-esteem is often nothing more than an inflated sense of self-worth.
All of this is not to say that positive self-esteem has no value – just that it is not the kind of boon many suppose it is.
A sturdy nation requires hard work, productivity, resourcefulness, discipline, the certain and impartial rule of law, respect for the rights of others, critical thinking, good service, strong family life, integrity, “make-do”, moral fortitude, civility, unity, commitment to shared ideals and so on.
These are not folkways, but values – that most critical aspect of culture that we omit from our interpretation of it – things that do not emerge from a simple-minded contemplation of your navel string.
Now, folkways can be tied to values, but we don’t tie them. We simply hold folkways aloft as trophies of our differentness.
But does mere differentness have what it takes to keep us out of the clutches of poverty, stagnation, strife, disorder, the IMF, Hell? Does it give us a we-can-take-it-on-the-chin-and-come-back-stronger attitude? Or is the case that for all our November flaunting of jooking boards and flat irons and “wunna” and cou cou and spouge, most of us aren’t any stronger in the traits that constitute national backbone?
Do the folkways that mark us off inspire national commitment or jingoism? Nose-to-the-grindstone resoluteness or a self-indulgent fickleness about our country?
Untethered from the meaning-giving experiences of strong-charactered people, our folkways are frail partners in our Novembers and all year round.
All-pervasive song treats listeners like only a waist or a “bumper” or a rag-waver or an opinion-seeker, and neglects people in character-shaping depicted experience – the few people in action in our songs are people who are dancing or acting in some inauthentic way.
In our Novembers we have not majored on highlighting things that embody, exemplify and, most importantly, experientialize robust nation-building values. It is just about differentness.
What difference will November make if that is our way?
November might as well be Christmas: dress up, decorate, parade yourself in your finery, eat, drink and be merry – and miss the whole point.