After the Flood Recedes
Those with power who are planning our resurgence from the coronavirus need imagination and, above all, the humility of a long view of the human drama. To buoy myself one recent morning, after reading so much bad news, I did what the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass had done at an earlier moment of crisis: I sat and reread the Book of Genesis. One of the most profound rebirths, at least in spiritual and literary terms, occurs in the first eight chapters of that oldest story of all.
All over our culture and in journalism right now, we are encountering metaphors of renewal, revival, restoration, and rebirth. For a host of historical reasons, Americans borrowed the grand idea of rebirth after destruction and then made it their own.
Some narratives of renewal are constructed with an authentic sense of tragedy, an understanding that in our nature is the capacity for great good and great evil. These accounts have the chance to convey real hope. Some stories of renewal, though, are puerile, inauthentic, and ignorant. One can witness this every evening in presidential news briefings that, if nothing else, should convince teachers and researchers at all levels of why their work matters.
