I said in last night’s Ramble:
But why is it lost? Because until that moment, those kids had never heard of it, had never been taught about it, until the scene Robinson describes to us. I’m not making accusations agaist Robinson, or Billy for that matter, just connections. Isn’t the scene at Doncaster trying to tell us, I wonder, that we’re not teaching the humanity side of the equation well enough to the future generations? We’ve spent a lot of time dealing in the law, but have we spent enough time, enough effort, in teaching the society, the morality, the human side of the equation, that the law was supposed to uphold? I submit that may of these problems like Doncaster are a direct result of not teaching the next generation what their own history is. And so rudderless, they succomb to anyone/anything claiming authority over them. They’ve forgotten their cultural history… and with it their freedom, and what it means.
I suppose you’d better go and read the whole thing [1], because what I’m going to say here won’t be self-explanitory.
There was an aspect of this I brushed aside, and have been told in feedback this morning I should have hit that point harder. In truth, I outright ignored it, as I shouldn’t have. Here it is: The kids obviously wanted to learn. Billy says:
Right then and there, however, it occurred to me for a fleeting moment that all is not yet lost.
I know the feeling well… it’s those glimmers that keep me thinking we’ve got a chance. Obviously, that feeling is the central part of the piece… both the one Robinson writes and the one Billy adds to it. (Again, a nice peice) What is going missing here in my response, is a recognition of that desire to learn what it is to be American, on the part of Robinson’s kids, and of the people Billy speaks of, as well. And yes, I understand we’re ‘only’ talking about Music. But music, in my view, connects us with our history at a very personal level, like few other things can.
As such, what we’re discussing here isn’t merely an appitite for music and sounds we’ve never heard before, like some Bohemian taste-monger from the Village. We’re talking about wanting to culturally connect with our past.
What I ignored in that Ramble was that desire, that interest… and it’s that which I think gives us hope for the future. It’s something that we as a people, and as individuals need to respond to. All isn’t lost, so long as that desire is there. The question is, and the point I was trying to make last night… are we feeding it enough to keep it alive?