When scanning the media, one may be forgiven for thinking that Americans are peeved. And at so many things: immigration, inflation, reproductive rights, voting rights, healthcare affordability, gun violence, church-state separation, drug trafficking, Gaza and Israeli policies, war in Ukraine and more. All suggest a nation stressed out.
We hear Americans given over to whining, complaining and grievance. “Grievance” is now the term of choice, meaning “a perceived wrong or injustice, real or imagined.” The term appears everywhere. Frank Bruni analyzes it in his best-selling book “The Age of Grievance.” Bruni is best known for his weekly columns in the New York Times’ opinion pages, a long-time position he left to teach journalism and public policy at Duke University.
There are laudable reasons for grievance. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides people with the right to seek a “redress of grievances,” natural enough since the Declaration of Independence charged “tyrant” King George III with 27 “usurpations.” In American history there followed the abolitionists’ grievances against slavery, the post-World War II civil rights movement to redress decades-long Jim Crow laws, the revolution in women’s rights – all seeking moral and legal changes in ways that transformed our nation for the better.
In current usage, however, the term is mostly used in a pejorative, ill-tempered way. Aggrieved persons feel victimized by someone or by some institution. Bruni describes grievance as a corrosive resentment that too often leads to bitterness and self-pity. It can even be for crazy sleights that feed on themselves, thereby cutting one off from mutual concessions and accommodations.
“For too many Americans,” writes Bruni, grievances are the “fail-safe calls” in thoughtlessly “explaining” things. Individual grievances are one thing, but Bruni argues that America for at least two decades has hosted a culture of non-stop grievance, especially in politics, as seen in “the directness and fierceness of the competition between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, people on the right and people on the left, for the Grievance Bowl’s Lombardi Trophy.” Because grievances are so often defined politically, based on a sense that “I know the truth and how dare you disagree with me,” it’s little wonder that ticket-splitting has become rare.
Bruni provides antidotes to the dysfunctional grievances that surround us, among which the key is “humility.” He provides examples of leaders doing the right thing, whose strong dose of humility served as a “bulwark” against arrogance and zeal. A case in point came when Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam worked across the aisle to make community college free for Tennesseans and, more controversially, vetoed a culture-war bill that would have made the Bible the official state book. Notably, he refused to brag about his actions.
Humility is an essential virtue in a democracy, enabling leaders and citizens to cooperate in the public good. President Joe Biden decided to end his reelection campaign as being in the “interest of my party and the country.” Although a weakened political position lay behind that decision, it remains true that few leaders have the courage to walk away from power.
As we well know, public memory focuses more on “unhumble” examples. We recall a newly elected president speaking to Americans about the sad state of their condition, who guaranteed: “I alone can fix it. “ Also fixed in memory are the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Frenzied, they valued their political preferences over tradition, law and order.
A weakness in Bruni’s discussion is not that the individual ideal of humility is mistaken, but rather in his failure to suggest how it can actually be achieved in the wider society. There are times when a powerful movement is necessary to bring about significant change, as when the New Deal emerged to address the crisis of the old (economic) order. Or when it took a crisis in Little Rock, sit-ins, marches, freedom rides and Brown v. Board of Education to move a nation to chip away at the enforced strict segregation of the races in public facilities.
Today the umbrella of explanation that looms over the age of grievance is a deepening fear among millions that they are losing their place and status in the world, that they are falling behind in the face of social progress, globalization, technology and the rise of artificial intelligence. Often the many forms of social media that connect us with others as never before result in feelings of falling behind.
One thing all communities could do is to strengthen volunteer agencies that offer educational programs that focus on technological change, and then assist people who are reaching out for new challenges. Local governments could be enlisted to cooperate. Last, and perhaps more importantly, individuals should connect with others and be flexible in viewing new situations as opportunities rather than as problems.
Ron Lora, a native of Bluffton, is professor emeritus of history at the University of Toledo. Contact him at [email protected]. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of the newspaper.
