Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, Nov. 7, 2024 "Now Is a Time for Courage"

A Liberal Dose

November 7, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly”

I am writing this column more than two days before the election, yet you will be reading it two days after. I don’t know what will happen -at this point it looks like it could go either way -whereas you know what has happened already, assuming it is decided within two days (and who knows if it will be). All of which leaves me in a strange place to be writing.

So I am going to spend this time talking about things that are true no matter who wins (or won), and that will sadly remain relevant no matter the election’s outcome.

First, I love movies. When I try to narrow it down to my favorite, I always come up with a three-way tie (High Noon, Casablanca, and It’s a Wonderful Life)… closely followed by the Godfather saga.

Those top three picks had a huge influence on me as a kid, as I was trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. They all featured good, positive, masculine role models (as portrayed by Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, and Jimmy Stewart), and -though very different genres -they had something else in common. They each featured a hero who stood up for what he knew was right, against overwhelming odds, despite great risk and even great personal cost to himself. Marshal Will Kane in High Noon did this despite no one he trusted believing in him. Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies, of course, is NOT a good role model. But there is still a similar lesson to be learned: he tried to protect his family by giving in and controlling the family business (which, we learn early on, he believes is wrong), doing absolutely terrible things in the process… and wound up destroying his family, instead of protecting them. It’s a roundabout way of saying the same thing. Do what you know is right, because it is worth the cost, whereas doing the wrong thing is NOT worth the cost.

Last week I talked about the incivility and even violence that has become the norm in the Trump era, and gave examples of many people who -out of fear -have knuckled under. A recent opinion piece about the Washington Post scrapping its planned endorsement of Harris out of Jeff Bezos's fear that Trump might win and exact economic revenge on him carried this subtitle:

"The collapse of civil courage in the Trump era is a historical parallel to Nazi Germany"

I see this collapse of civil courage increasingly, not just in politics and public life, but in academia... which is increasingly inextricably linked to politics. In the current bullying atmosphere, some teachers are afraid to teach; some reporters are afraid to report; some librarians are afraid to encourage reading; some doctors are afraid to save lives. And some go much further, joining in on the chorus against the “other” to avoid being lumped in with them.

I am reminded of people during the Hollywood blacklist era who protected themselves and their own careers by naming names and throwing others to the wolves... and when the tide of public opinion turned, it was they themselves who were cast out as traitors and cowards, and shunned by their industry. High Noon, by the way (in case you didn’t know), was written as an allegory of that very blacklisting process, using several blacklisted actors and crew.

I am also reminded of people in occupied countries like France and the Netherlands who, to protect themselves, collaborated with the Nazis rather than struggle against them. When the Nazis were defeated, such people were left to face the fury of those whom they had left to suffer while gaining safety for themselves, as well as their own consciences… many of them contorting themselves like pretzels in an effort to avoid the judgment of their grandchildren. The same holds true for the many who, though they did not actively collaborate, stood by and did nothing and pretended not to know what was really going on.

Well, no one ever has to wonder where I stand or what I think, and they never will. I take to heart the motto of Davy Crockett (who sacrificed his political career to oppose Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal plan): "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." When reminded he would have to face his voters, he remarked that he had to face himself in the mirror and one day he would have to face God. He was the sort of politician we don’t see often, and need to see more of, at least in that regard.

It is a sad statement about our times that I often have sincere friends, on the left and the right, express concern for my safety because of the things I say on here. Since I was a teenager I have identified with Jeremiah, who -when he tried to stop speaking the truth because it kept bringing him violent reprisals -said that it burned in his bones like fire until he had to let it out. I would be miserable if I did not speak out what I see to be truth.

To quote the great historian and general Thucydides: “The secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage.”

To quote Paul in his letter to Timothy: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

And, finally, to quote Thomas Paine in 1776: “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

A couple of weeks ago I told you what Cherokees say instead of goodbye (“we will see each other again”). Here is another expression sometimes used in place of farewells:

Stiyu. Have courage.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party and the board of the Tennessee chapter of American Indian Movement (AIM) -Indian Territory. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE