The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,67
might look like a lot of people, but it’s not. A few years ago there would have been twice this many.”
As I chew, I glance around at the crowd, happy there aren’t twice as many of them. The sun, which burned hotly an hour ago, hides itself behind the gathering gray clouds. Looks like rain.
“I wouldn’t have come myself,” Barber says, “except Chas insisted. I’m much more into the flash mob scene these days. You know about that?”
“Like on YouTube?” Jed asks. “People showing up at the train station out of nowhere and singing a song?”
“And even that’s gone a little stale for my taste. The thing is, we’re a niche culture. Does anyone really want to identify with a cause that millions of other people support too?”
“Like peace?” I ask.
“Exactly. Generic peace can’t even hold my attention. You have to drill down, right? What exactly are you against? All war in general? That’s pretty broad. You can get a lot of bodies behind that, but it’s not really unity. Narrow it down to, say, child soldiers. Less people turn up, but there’s more passion. Narrow it down again to these particular child soldiers in this particular African civil war, and nobody knows what you’re talking about—except the ones who do, and with them, you’re like this.” He twines his middle finger around his index finger. “Simpatico, right?”
“What does a flash mob have to do with child soldiers?” Jed asks.
“That’s just an example. Like I said, even that scene’s a little dated.”
Marlene touches Jed’s arm lightly. “The point is, the way to speak to the universal is through the particular. The broad message might appear to speak to everyone, but really it speaks to no one deeply. When you focus on the particular, even though it seems counterintuitive, by communicating just one thing to just one person, you say everything to everyone.”
“Cool,” Jed says.
I exchange a look with Vernon, who’s sitting on my right. He smiles but makes no comment.
“Have you ever participated in a flash mob?” I ask him.
“Me?” He rolls his eyes. “I try to steer clear of anything that qualifies as a ‘scene.’ But like he said, Chas thought this was important, so here we are.”
“You’re like a family,” I say. “Or a church.”
“But with a lot less drama than either one.”
“I don’t know, Doc. Looking around, I wouldn’t say that at all.”
Much to my surprise, I am starting to enjoy myself. The clouds overhead, a cool breeze, the grass between my fingers, it’s pretty much idyllic. After lunch, with the speakers still droning, we trek toward the Lincoln Memorial. As we reach the top of the steps, a fat raindrop bursts on the back of my hand. Then I feel them on my legs, see them popping on the marble at my feet. Just in time, we pass through the fluted columns and into the shaded temple, Honest Abe glowering down at us.
“The Great Emancipator,” Vernon says.
“That’s right,” Chas replies in his tour guide voice. “But do you know what those tied bundles of sticks are in his armrests? Right there under his hands? Those are called fasces, the old Roman symbol for power—”
“Which is where we get the word Fascism,” Barber says. “And it’s no surprise, considering he suspended habeas corpus and assumed Guantanamo-like powers—”
“But,” Chas says, cutting him off, “there’s a significant difference here. Traditionally, the fasces would have an axe in the middle, but there’s no axe here. Why not? Anybody?”
“If there was an axe,” Jed says, “it might cut his hand.”
“Good guess, but no. In the ancient world, when you entered Rome, you had to take the axe out of the fasces, in deference to the people. Symbolizing how the citizens trumped the state. Even then, they understood that true power derives from a mandate from the people.”
He goes on in this vein for some time.
I find myself wandering into one of the side chambers of the temple, where Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is inscribed in stone. The letters themselves, deeply incised, have an aesthetic power. My eyes settle on one line: Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. Things have only gotten worse since then. From two niches (to use Barber’s word), North and South, we’ve splintered into hundreds of thousands, a nation of tribes connected not by kinship or even creed. We’re merely tethered together by the Internet, by our brand loyalties and shared consumer obsessions.