Do you remember the first reading assignment to be completed before you arrived in L.A.? It may have been the first clue of what the three weeks would be but you may not have realized it then. Here are the instructions:
The Declaration of Independence. [Please read this as if you have never read it before--slowly, back and forth, sideways if possible. Try to make the text seem strange. Then read it as if you were its author, revising where you would. Read it again, as an editor. Change your roles with the text, thinking about what printed, published, archived texts allow you to do. But also, thinking about this text, as it permanently is, given what happens when you try to change it.]
The fourth of July provokes so many to share excerpts from this text. You may have heard a good deal of fuss about Twitter during the initial days of unrest in Iran. Today I’ve seen Twitter friends quote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” as they encourage friends to “be free today!” My feed has included promises of picnics, cold drinks and the best spot for watching fireworks downtown.
In fact, all of today’s celebrations and the Twitter story form Iran interesect in another interesting way. So many of my online friends were eager to support what they saw as a people’s movement for independence in Iran. This drove the stream of news from Iran to continue for days as people changed profile pics and avatars to bear the green hue of the opposition movement and retweeted every scrap of news as they found it. Americans love independence and find it difficult to resist a movement that seeks to achieve it.
Today I encourage you to make this assignment from the National Academy part of your celebration. Leave your thoughts in the comments below–what do you have to say as an author or an editor? What resonates more now after the work of the National Academy? What quotes would you like people to discuss more? And, let’s not forget your classroom incubators for American ideals…. did you use some version of this activity in your classroom? What did you do and what did your learn by doing it?
Lastly… if you’re not sharing a few big smiles and hardy laughs with friends and family today, you’re doing something wrong. Here’s some silly fun to mark the day:
I know this is not directly relevant to the post above. However, I wonder if any of the Academy members have ever read the Alexander H. Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech or John C. Calhoun’s Oregon Bill Speech? I had never read them myself until this summer, but wow! what an amazingly backwards way to look at natural rights! If you haven’t read them, they basically say that, as I am sure you would predict, that when the Declaration says “all men are created equal”, it did not mean persons of African descent. What a horrible reading of natural rights. I would wager, though, that it was the logical cognitive outcome of Darwin’s and Spencer’s theories. I had always read that antebellum Southern thinkers were racist; I had never actually read their words to see how much so. What a horrible version of an anti-Declaration.
I wonder if Dr. Harris has ever/will ever refer to those readings in the Academy?