Independence. It’s the American condition.
To the ragtag revolutionaries of 1776 it was a bold slap at the old order. It meant freedom from stuffy ole England and crazy King George, but more importantly, it meant freedom to take a gamble on the wild-eyed notion of self-government. But even at the nation’s birth, independence had its contradictions. Sparkling promise was shadowed by slavery, and by suffrage denied to all but white men of property. Today the idea of independence still holds us in its thrall, but its practice has migrated from the realm of the political to that of the personal.
It’s now more about the cars we drive and lifestyles we choose than the self evident truths staked out in the Declaration; less about freedom to, more about freedom from. We’re declaring and defining independence, that peculiar, profound, perplexing American obsession.
(Hosted by Dick Gordon)
Guests:
Orlando Patterson, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University
Jane Kamensky, Associate Professor of History, Brandeis University
and Richard Ford, novelist, author of “Independence Day.”