American Culture and the Promise of Living

One of my friends is from Brazil and his take on American culture is that it's too focused on money. He makes his viewpoint known in little jokes and asides. I don't take offense, because I largely agree with him. But recently I was reminded that this view of America is too shallow. That's not all there is to us.

I happened to be driving through rural Illinois and Indiana between rolling farmland and forest on a sun-soaked fall afternoon. My iPod was on random, and Aaron Copland's "The Promise of Living" from his opera The Tender Land began playing over my rental car's speakers. In the song, the characters celebrate these values:

The promise of living with hope and thanksgiving is born of our loving our
friends and our labor.

It continues with an ode to neighborliness, shared labor and shared blessings, optimism and love. This is surely part of our culture too, though I think it's harder to see in urban America with the relentless drive for money and celebrity that obscure these values.

And I don't think these values are dead. I've seen it recently, in the way my parents' community has embraced them, literally and figuratively, as my father continues his battle with cancer.

The promise of growing with faith and with knowing Is born of our sharing our
love with our neighbor.

What challenges these values now is the notion that in a much smaller world our neighbors no longer look very much like us. Our neighbors are black, they are gay, they are Muslim. It's harder to share love with those who are different. But if we're going to honor our American values, that's exactly what we must do.

I've added two clips of the song here. One is from the opera, so you can hear how Copland
originally envisioned it. The performance of the bass and soprano are fine here, but I can't quite figure out what is going on with that background.

And in case you still don't get it from the Berkley Opera's more subtle version, John Williams and the Boston Pops will hit you over the head with it in their version. I was initially annoyed by Williams' slower tempo, but like it better on second hearing.



And the Boston Pops version: