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Charles Hamilton Houston’s Heroism Gives Glow To Our Civic History
“[Houston]was an egalitarian elitist …like Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams…” — Harvard Divinity School Prof. Cornel West
“[In describing Houston that way] I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it too…” — Harvard Law School Prof. Randall Kennedy
By Kevin C. Peterson
The current problem with American civic culture is that it persist under the unseemly sway of postmodernism where most people are prey to highly narcissistic impressions of who they are and how they operate within the world.
Amidst this crisis of national identity, our collective public life is truncated. Our past and present sense of community are distorted through the dark lenses of selfishness. All leadership is suspect. Citizenship is atomized and has turn inward on itself. Forms of civic heroism are reduced to narrow, egotistic preferences that are unsharable in the public square.
Yet, the chore of sustaining American democracy calls us to recognize those whose work and public effort give meaning to the contours of our public life. Establishing reviving narratives of civic meaning that give deep context to what it means to be an American — to share its values and common destiny — is vital.
