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318 Autumn Is Upon Us

9/17/2025

Well, it’s now mid-September and that got me to thinking about the season of Autumn. Somehow, about this time every year, a certain group of lines relating to this season runs through my head until I give up and acknowledge them, then spend more time than I probably should thinking them through very carefully. Perhaps you’ve encountered these lines yourself. You may have read them, or heard them, or, encountered them in some other form. Anyway, here’s how they go:

Surprised you, didn’t I? I suspect that all these years most people have probably thought of me as a bit of a hard-nosed, certainly hard to please, old fogey, who was too insensitive to really care about much of anything, or anyone else very much. I hate to tell you this, but it’s called ACTING! (That could be why I ended up spending my life doing Theatre stuff!)

In fact, deep down inside, where I don’t let it show very often, I think that I’m basically a Romantic. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I am “romantic” in the way most people tend to think of that term. I’m, no ”Hollywood leading man,” and I’m very much aware of it. But I will suggest that I have always been not just fond of, but something of a “true believer” in many of the notions which were central to what came to be called “Romanticism” beginning in the latter part in the 18th Century and lasting well into the 19th (if not well beyond).

Now, as I understand it, the “Romantics” rejected many of the social conventions of their time in favor of a moral outlook known as individualism. They argued that passion and intuition were crucial to understanding the world, and that beauty is more than merely form, but is something that evokes a strong emotional response. With this philosophical foundation, the Romantics focused on several key concepts to which they were deeply committed: a reverence for nature and the supernatural, an idealization of the past as a nobler era, a fascination with the exotic and the mysterious, and a celebration of the heroic and the sublime. (Source: Wikipedia)

Yes, I’m quite fond of these sorts of things and have been most all my life. Now, I won’t pretend that I’ve always (or even very often) gone out of my way to make it obvious how much of a Romantic I truly am. In fact, I’ve probably gone too far in trying to hide it, but I think it’s pretty much always been true, even if I didn’t really have the words to express it and explain it in the “proper, academic” form.

While I think that it was true at least by the time I was in high school, I don’t think that I really came to understand it until I was in college. Now, you see, while I was in college, I had, as is common practice, roommates. During my junior year, I actually lived in a sort of suite, with two friends. One of these had recently been to New York, where he had seen the (then relatively new) off-broadway musical, The Fantasticks. Then, he went out and bought the original cast album, with which he proceeded to drive me (at least) completely crazy by playing it CONSTANTLY! It drove me NUTS! I HATED it!

To make a long story short, that Spring Break, I went to New York with some friends (all of whom wanted to see that show, so I, somewhat reluctantly, went to see it with them. After all, it WAS a New York musical. It was off-broadway, so it was less expensive than a real Broadway show would have been. We were poor college students. AND, I did get to go with my friends….

Okay, I fell in love with it (as a LOT of other people have, both before and since). Now, the show opened in 1960, and I saw it in the spring of 1965 (I think)! Obviously, what I saw was NOT the original cast (although it was the “original production” in the Sullivan Street Playhouse, down in the Village), but I was completely blown away. So, I promptly bought the original cast album, and tried to wear it out on MY phonograph. (Yes, CD’s were not yet even conceived of, it was that long ago!)

Since then, I have been involved, in one way, or another, with at least FOUR productions of the show at Western, and I have seen additional performances in other places, because I love the show so much. I have designed the set and lights several times, stepped in as director for a sick colleague once, and even played Henry Albertson, the old actor, during one of the summers that WCU had a rep. company in residence at Fontana Village Resort (having designed sets and lights for that production, as well).

What is it about this show that so many of us love? I’m not sure, but I suspect that it has something to do with the essentially Romantic nature of most real “Theatre People.” I think it’s fair to say that most of the best theatre folk I have known love the nostalgic sense of “long ago and far away,” which I would argue is central to theatre. Even when the issues, problems and characters of the play are extremely current, there is something about the nature of theatre which removes them from “the present” in order to make them bearable. I think that’s well caught in the song “Try to Remember” in The Fantasticks, so I want to include its lyrics here.

This song both opens and closes the show. It both sets up the entire thing and closes it out, as well. And I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never known a theatre person who was not perfectly willing to experience it again (and again) in any fashion available, although I can’t say that I think that the movie version works anything like as well as the stage one. I think that’s because the movie can't capture the imaginative, theatrical simplicity which is easy to capture on the stage, but very hard to duplicate in a movie.

You see, Try to Remember sets the whole thing up as “make believe,” a memory, not the “truth,” but a PLAY which is MORE than simple “truth” (which, of course, ALL good plays are).” The cast is then introduced (as characters) and we (the audience) find out a bit about who those characters are and how they relate to each other. THEN, the story gets underway with the Narrator filling in the necessary circumstances with what is known as “The Glen Speech,” with which I opened this post.

The play progresses as a fairly simple, obvious, “growing up,” “falling in love,” “getting hurt,” “learning what is truly of importance in life” story, of which thousands have been written and most people have lived through in one way or another. There’s even provision for us “olders” to consider the fact that we have “suffered through” some sort of similar experience(s) and they have contributed to our (hopefully) becoming the mature, caring adults which most of us want to be (and hope we are). That provision works to remind us of the role that parents, grandparents, teachers, and others who are present in the lives of our “learning” play (and the pain which sometimes accompanies it) in what is known as “the paradox” speech.

Perhaps it’s foolish, but once I came to start to understand that speech, I felt that I truly understood the unhappiness which I always felt when I had to assign a student a grade which I knew would disappoint them. But, I also understood why I knew I couldn’t just be “nice” and “give” those students a grade they would have liked better. In fact, of course, when properly and fairly applied, discipline (of all sorts) is a form of affection (even love). It’s how we grow, and it’s a lot like the change of the seasons. Autumn is NOT the “season of dying.” It’s the season of fulfilling destiny and settling down to rest for the Winter, so that we can be prepared for the rebirth of something new in the Spring and growth through the Summer. It’s natural, it’s normal, and, I dare say, it fits right in with the notions of Romanticism.

If you get a chance sometime, go see The Fantasticks if you’ve not seen it before, or go see it again, when you can. It’s worth the time, effort and expense. It’s a quick lesson in what makes us human. You MIGHT even realize that YOU are something of a Romantic, too. It’s not a bad thing, after all. Some might even say that it’s what separates real HUMANS from just “people.”

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

3 Comments

317 Our Country Was Based On "Wokeness!"

9/3/2025

1 Comment

You have probably noticed, as I have, that the term, “woke,” has come into rather frequent use in contemporary society. For some, “woke” essentially describes the beliefs of citizens who care about others and wish to establish a society where ALL people are, in fact, treated equally and fairly. For others, “woke” seems to define all that is radical, leftist, anti-white, pro-LGBTQ, and “UN-American.” Now I don’t expect to change anybody’s mind about these opinions. If someone’s already decided on the “truth" of either of these positions, that would seem to be a waste of my time. But, not too long ago, while we were watching the news one evening, my wife commented that, for all intents and purposes, it seems reasonable to suggest that our country (the USA) was, in fact, based on “wokeness.”

That statement got me to thinking about what I have learned about our history in relation to what I think of as being “woke,” and I decided that there seemed to be a good deal of truth in her assertion. However, even as a fairly casual student of US history, I have to admit that reality in this case probably isn’t quite as simple as it might immediately seem, history rarely being simple. However, there DOES seem to be a degree of truth in her statement, even if there isn’t a clean, straight line of “wokeness” directly through our collective history. So, I decided that this post might discuss some aspects of this idea, pointing out some of the reasons I would say that this concept seems to be true, as well as some of the ways in which our forefathers perhaps weren’t as successful in following that path as some would wish.

First, we probably should establish some sort of definition as to what we mean by “woke.” Now, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, the term “woke” means something like: “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” I suspect that’s about as universally acceptable a definition as one is likely to find. One can (and some almost certainly will), of course, quibble about the details, but let’s accept this definition as at least a reasonable place to start our discussion.

I would suggest that the early colonists to this land both were, and were NOT, “woke” in this sense. It appears quite clear that some of the colonies which would eventually become the US were, mostly, business ventures. That is, they were, in fact, primarily intended to earn a profit for their backers (many of whom stayed in England, just invested funds in those colonies and wanted a return on their investment as quickly as possible). Other colonies, were founded to be places where various religious groups could be free to worship as they wished, free from the constraints of the “established” (approved by the monarchy) Church of England. Hence, there were a variety of colonies consisting of Separatists (people who wished to separate themselves from that church, often referred to as the “Pilgrims”), or Puritans (who only wished to reform (purify) the C of E), or Anglicans (Episcopalians), or Catholics, or Quakers, or Congregationalists, or German Pietists, or Lutherans, or Methodists, and others, as well.

Some of these colonies (perhaps even a majority of them) were, in fact, pretty intolerant of religious beliefs other than those of the majority of that colony’s settlers. Hence, they were “woke” to accepting the possible validity of beliefs other than the “Official” ones of the English crown, but “unwoke” towards accepting beliefs which weren’t their own.

Much the same could be said regarding racial matters. It seems reasonably fair to suggest that the majority of the earliest colonists were of some sort of “British” heritage (these were, of course, mostly ENGLISH colonies), so race wasn’t really thought of as a factor of major importance among the earliest colonists. Of course, African and/or (captured) Indigenous people were maintained as slaves in ALL of the colonies (for economic reasons). That was justified because they were “property,” not viewed as really being “people.”

Eventually, even while there were still just colonies, there were, in fact, “free Blacks” in many of the colonies, but they were few in number and they were mostly urban dwellers. And, they were, fairly commonly, subject to most of the same social restrictions as those who were enslaved, but they either had skills enough to earn the money to purchase their freedom, had been manumitted by a previous owner (yes, that DID happen, but it was pretty rare), or had simply escaped from their owner (and managed not to be caught). Probably the most widely known of these early “free Blacks” was Crispus Attucks, who was killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770.

The Indigenous people (American “Indians”) were (in spite of the wonderful platitudes everybody pretends to believe around Thanksgiving), generally, not particularly well treated by any of the colonists (and have never really been treated like “real” people down to and including the present day), so it’s probably at least reasonably fair to suggest that the notion of “wokeness” has rarely, if ever, been thought of as relating to them, although it could, and really should, be.

Then, along about the 1770’s, a notion arose among the colonies that the “real” people in the colonies (the BRITISH colonialists) weren’t actually being treated by the King of England quite the same way that other British citizens were. Eventually, this attitude would take on the form of a fairly lengthy list of specific grievances which the Continental Congress would eventually declare made it “…necessary for one people (the COLONISTS) to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them….”

Then, they went on to state that they (through their representatives in the Congress) “… hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”

It seems to me that these are rather strong statements relating to what is now called “social justice.” After all, the European tradition was, essentially, that governments were formed in accordance with Divine will, and were ruled by divinely selected absolute monarchs. The idea that common citizens should have anything much to say in the matter had only been recently discussed by John Locke and a few others. While one would have to stretch things a good deal to argue that the belief in the “Divine Right of Kings” hadn’t been dealt some blows in many European countries (including England), it hadn’t been quite so blatantly challenged prior to this time. The notion that people, COMMON people, are equal to all others, have established rights and that governments should exist to secure those rights for them was really quite a progressive notion, probably at least as radical in it’s impact on the concept of “social justice” as the Magna Carta had been a good many years before. And, while Magna Carta DID, in fact, place some restrictions on the powers of the English king, it was only intended to grant some, minimal, powers to the aristocracy. It didn’t even consider the “rights” of the public at large.

I would still have to suggest that these were pretty “woke” ideas at the time (and remain so, in my estimation). The Declaration which contains them did, after all, lead to an armed rebellion, which is probably not what most folks really desired then, or would wish for in current times.

Ultimately, of course, these ideas were established as the basis of this new country, through the Declaration of Independence and (later) the Constitution. Over a number of years, and after some other troubles the definition of “people” would, eventually, spread to include former (male) slaves and their male children, which meant that the notion of social justice established by our forefathers was at least supposed to include them within the circle of what the Declaration called “Men.” THEN, a while later, the idea that females should also actually be considered as “people,” (and hence, should have the same rights and privileges as “Men”) came along. Other issues would arise over the years, but the notion of awareness of and attention to issues of social justice certainly can be traced back to before the United States existed and was, fairly obviously, of considerable concern to this country’s founders. When one also considers the later developments, it all seems pretty “woke” to me.

All this leads me to suggest that it seems that the “boiling point” issue which we face today is clearly that of racial/ethnic justice. There is no logical reason which I can understand why this should be such a difficulty. After all, the vast majority of us are, in fact, descendants of immigrants, most of whom came to this country to escape the limitations of their “old” countries, or were brought here by others. We, as a nation, have, in one way, or another, managed (often having to work through various forms of prejudice, discrimination, etc.) to deal with (and ultimately accept) influxes of people from virtually all parts of the world. In almost every case, as soon as any, specific, ethnic group became large enough, it was discriminated against in employment, housing, religion, etc., because “THOSE people aren’t ever going to be REAL Americans.” After all, they don’t look, or talk like us REAL Americans, they go to the wrong churches, they take our jobs away from us, and/or they do things WE don’t like or understand. AND, of course, they are almost as bad as those “Blacks,” who really are, and always have been, inferior to us European-ancestored, REAL AMERICANS.

Somehow though, as the country expanded, little pockets of similarly-heritaged people managed to find each other and set up various communities either in large city neighborhoods, rural farming communities, or factory/mill towns and they managed to adapt (AND to eventually become accepted as being) “Americans” of some sort of extraction. In Southern Appalachia, where I taught in a middle-sized university, we talked about the settling of that area by the Scots-Irish. The city of Chicago, near to where I grew up (ironically enough that name was adapted from the language of the indigenous Miami/Illinois tribe) had (and has) neighborhoods which were (some still are) filled with folks whose families came from Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and many more, including various Asiatic ethnicities. And, of course, virtually all of the world’s religions are represented in Chicagoland. And that’s not what could be called a unique situation; similar ones can be found (with varying emphasis) in many locales around the country.

Somehow, all of these differing groups have, generally, figured out a way to get along well enough to have, generally, reasonably well functioning communities. I’m not so naive as to suggest that there have never been, or still aren’t, tensions between various groups, but, to use Chicago as an example, when you put about 9.6 million people in an area encompassing about 7000 square miles, it’s not unlikely that there are going to be some stresses. Still, in spite of what some say, Chicago, like most urban areas actually functions pretty well and the tensions between ethnic and religious groups are, for the most part, pretty much under control, as is true in many places. Most violent crime, I believe, most often occurs within ethnic-based communities, not between them,

So, if the US has something of an, imperfect, but authentic, handle on “…issues of racial and social justice.” does that mean that the country is “woke?” Well, not exactly. You see we still haven’t yet looked at the racial divide between “Black” folks and virtually the entirety of the rest of us. That’s an issue which has never been adequately addressed. It seems that there are some folks who just can’t get over the myth that justified slavery: “Those BLACK people just don’t have the intelligence or ability to be more than “field” workers, so we really shouldn’t allow them to have any meaningful input into the running of the country because they just can’t handle it. They are just plain inferior to us “White” folks and will never be our equal.” That’s been the mantra for some since the earliest colonization, and, at least for some, it still seems to pass as the truth, in spite of a fair amount of evidence to the contrary.

Some would even argue that legally segregated schools, then “white flight” to the suburbs (to avoid integration when THAT came along) and where “red lining” kept non-whites out of “white” neighborhoods have proven to be nothing but somewhat foolishly misguided, and largely unsuccessful, attempts to maintain the belief in “White Superiority” (except, of course, in the case of student athletics, where black kids are often recruited because they are “by nature” better athletes). The US has NEVER actually really even attempted to deal with the social and political issues which have led to the frequent failures of such efforts, and it seems unwilling to seriously attempt to do so.

WE should also remember that women weren’t granted the right to vote until after Black men. What does that say about too many people’s attitudes towards equality of rights among the sexes? It’s worth noting that there are still people today, who would suggest that women shouldn’t be allowed the vote and that the US should be a “Christian” nation. Given our national history, I feel obliged to inquire: “Which variation of Christianity should the nation be forced to follow?” This all starts to sound a lot like how the original revolution got started. I think the First Amendment of the Constitution (“woke” as it may be) works pretty well in this regard as originally written.

Recently, (but actually for centuries) many issues of social inequality have been related to sexism, and LGBTQ rights. These questions are not easy to resolve, I will grant, but, as problems, the conflict SEEMS to mostly grow out of RELIGIOUS beliefs. On the other hand, I note that a number of religions, denominations, etc. seem to be dealing with these issues in their own ways within their communities. Perhaps we should follow the advice of the Founders and accept the idea that they put in the Constitution (and its Amendments) and not get our government tied up in “religious” questions.

I think there’s a reason why the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” My belief is that the founders were well aware of the disputes between the religious groups in the various colonies, so they, wisely, established the principle that there should be NO “established,” state religion and that ALL religions should be free to practice their religious beliefs without governmental interference, as long as they also allowed others to do so. The fact that some of our “leaders” today wish to circumvent this provision, merely shows that some of them seem to be so desperate to enhance their own POLITICAL power that they will even stoop to wishing to be thought of more as “religious” figures than as political ones. That doesn’t even relate to the idea of being truly “woke” in any sense, as I see it. However, it DOES appear that the idea of “wokeness” seems to be pretty inherent in the founding principles of our nation.

Without getting into the issues of the 14th Amendment which have been raised regarding the “birthright citizenship” even for children born to illegal immigrants, it might be worth noting that that Amendment DOES STATE: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” It goes on to say that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That, combined with the freedom of religion clause in the 1st Amendment, would appear to raise substantial questions of the legality of some legislative proposals being advanced today. (Of course, I’m NOT a lawyer.)

My suspicion, however, is that over time these issues will, eventually, settle down, even though I think it’s likely to take a while for some of these questions to become less controversial. It would appear, at least to me, that the majority of citizens just want people to be able to make up their own minds and, basically, be left alone.

I think there’s still hope we can achieve the sort of “awakened” country which I think the Founding Fathers desired (even if they wouldn’t have called it “woke).” I admit that I believe that it’s pretty likely that it’s going to take a while to get there, though, which is sort of sad. We’ve spent a long time moving in the (more or less) right direction to still have so far to go. Still, we (as a nation) have previously dealt with issues just as complex and difficult as the ones we face today. I’d like to think we can still move ahead. We just have to use our heads and our hearts and follow what many people call “The Golden Rule,” which exists in some form in virtually all religious traditions. That Rule is, of course, essentially “TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU’D LIKE TO BE TREATED!” Or, as we in the Universal Life Church say: “We are all children of the same universe.”

Well, I’ll get out of my pulpit now. See you in a couple of weeks.

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

P.S. Since I started working on this post, I ran across the following picture which seems to me to be, generally, related to some of the issues discussed above. I think it’s worth thinking about in any case.

RSB

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318 Autumn Is Upon Us

317 Our Country Was Based On "Wokeness!"

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