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In his new collection of Wall Street Journal columns, “A Fixed Idea of America” (Published November 19 by Portfolio), Pulitzer Prize winner Peggy Noonan writes about our nation's history and character, the remarkable figures who represent the best of America, threats to the social fabric, and our “better angels.” Are. democracy.
Read the introduction below, and Don't miss Robert Costa's conversation with Peggy Noonan “CBS Sunday Morning” 17th November!
“A Fixed Idea of America” by Peggy Noonan.
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Preface
This is not a book about the day-to-day of our national political life. It's just about loving America and having fun thinking about it out loud.
The pillars collected here are diverse in terms of subject matter. They are about things that endure, and that are worth promoting. Many of them are about wonderful human beings. As my editor and I have read over the years wall street journal Column, if I said, “I really enjoyed writing this,” or he said, “I liked it,” or I said, “This was important to me,” it was in. If not, out. We chose about eighty out of more than four hundred. We found ourselves most attracted to the themes of history and its joys.
The book is divided into seven parts.
“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” is mostly about great twentieth-century celebrities and artists, from Billy Graham to Oscar Hammerstein, Queen Elizabeth II to Maine State Senator Margaret Chase Smith, and Tom Wolfe to Bob Dylan. . With some additional visits to nineteenth century and American Civil War generals. Now looking back on a career spanning fifty years, I see that right from the beginning the thing that has appealed to me the most, the thing that has influenced me the most, is writing honest appreciation.
“I Don't Mind Being Stern”, on the other hand, is about having fun as a public writer, about taking as big a stand as possible towards people and things you're certain about. You are worth it. The US Senate is changing its dress code to accommodate a senator who enjoys dressing like children? Get the stick. Vindictive Prince Harry? Just like that. We were certain that the recent Broadway production Cabaret It deserves our strictest attention, in a piece whose last line sums it up: “There is no life.” Merde.” We condemn men who are not gentlemen, and scold parents who, as a product of their personal vanity, raise children to become mindless status robots. Also those woke academics Also on fire are those who speak useless thoughts with useless words. (I'm sorry) Use the word “woke”, which is boring and only sounds sarcastic, but the point is that when you say it, Everyone pretty much knows what you mean.) I believe we were the first to compare the contemporary Social Justice Warriors to the Chinese Cultural Revolution struggle sessions we enjoyed pointing out. The leaders of the revolution were, largely, sociologists, says an article written in the after hours of January 6, 2021.
In “Try a Little Tenderness” we turn to love, which we present as a very good thing. We call upon artists to enter politics. Following the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, we meditate on the enduring presence and power of religious faith. We love fearlessly, we fall unconscious and want to marry, Leo Tolstoy and war and PeaceWe mourn for Uvalde, Texas. We talk about the endless drama of men and women, and instruct America that every day is more about office than business. Plus we declare Taylor Swift an American phenomenon, and if you don't like it you can ignore it.
“It appears he didn't take my advice” is two columns long. The first, on Joe Biden, was so spectacularly wrong in its central prediction that it made us laugh. Yet looking back five years I still find this argument oddly relevant. Second, on Donald Trump, on the eve of the 2016 election, I think there is some conscience about his central problems as a historical figure. Besides, I also remember a poignant feeling in its writing.
“On America” is about our country's foibles, troubles and triumphs. It includes the story of my great aunt Jane Jane, and how, as an Irish immigrant, she fell in love with her new country. I would say the general theme of this section is about keeping your balance under pressure. It includes the passionate, staunch testimony of a recent college graduate, the Normandy invasion, and an old-fashioned capitalist. It also includes a portrait of the dynamics that produced sweeping political change: “protected versus insecure.”
“Watch Out” includes columns about the concerns that plague my mind: the dark possibilities of AI, doubts about the character and motives of its inventors; the possible use of nuclear weapons, and the ongoing drama in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“We Can Handle It” is about working our way, as a nation, through the things that bother us, from the #MeToo movement to the abortion war, from building a sensible foreign policy to the American To the lowly position of the presidency.
The title of this collection is taken from the famous first sentence of Charles de Gaulle's “War Memoirs”, most happily translated as “All my life I have had a fixed idea of France”. When I read this many years ago and it stuck with me, I realized it was because I had had a certain idea about America my whole life, and from the beginning it shaped my thinking and shaped my work going forward. Extended.
What is that idea? That she is good. That it has value. From birth he was something new, a step forward, an advancement in the history of man. Its founders were engaged in the highest form of human achievement, articulating concepts and creating systems that would make life more just. I saw something of a myth in the workings of its history. For example, a talented group of founders – how did it happen that those special people came together at that particular moment with exactly the right (different but complementary) gifts? Long ago I asked the historian David McCullough whether he had ever thought about this. He said yes, and the only explanation he could give was: “Providence.” My mind also resides here.
De Gaulle said that his views about France were driven by reason as well as emotions, and the same is the case for me. Here's an excerpt from July 3, 2019, about both:
I'm not really big into the Purple Mountain Majestic area. I would love America if it were a hole in the ground, although yes, it is beautiful. I don't like it just because it's “an idea”, as we all say now. That sounds a little anemic to me. Baseball did not come from an idea, but from We-A long spectacular game of high excellence and heart-wrenching moments, a team game in which each player works on his own. The great film about America's entertainment is not called field of ideasit is called field of dreamsAnd the scene that makes every adult cry is when the dark-haired young catcher walks out of the corn field and walks toward Kevin Costner, who I suddenly realize is my father.
He asks if they can play catch, and they do so at night.
From the Father comes the great question: “Is this heaven?” Great answer: “It's Iowa.”
Which takes me closer to my feelings on patriotism. We are people who have experienced something amazing together. We were given this wonderful, beautiful thing, this new order, a political invention based on this amazing notion that we are all equal, and where you start doesn't determine where you end up. We have kept it going, from father to son, mother to daughter, inspired by excellence and despite heartbreak, across generations. Whatever was happening, depression or war, we kept the meaning high and moved forward. We have respected and protected the Constitution.
And in moving forward and moving forward we have created a history, traditions, a way of existing together.
We've been doing this for 243 years, since the first 4th of July and despite all the changes the world has seen.
This is all a miracle. I love America because this is where miracles happen.
I will say about the above, welcome to the depths of my heart.
You will see some glimpses of the American Civil War here. This has been a lifelong engagement and follows my interest in Abraham Lincoln, whose life has influenced me since childhood. He is the only American president who was both a political and literary genius – literally a genius – and had an air of mystery about him. He was thoroughly human (with the homely mannerisms, the absurd jokes, the melancholy letter-writing, the angry letter-writing) and yet there was something almost supernatural in his ability to be impartial, to be fair, to be kind to his tormentors ( The angry letters were) thrown into a drawer). What a figure. Tolstoy considered him the greatest man in history.
Religious faith is a constant subtext here because it is my constant subtext.
Anyway, America. Despite all her terrible flaws (for example, we have always been a violent country) she deserves a feeling of deep security from us. Our great job as citizens is to polish it a little, make it better and hand it over safely to the next generation, and ask them to polish it and hand it over. I think that's often what I was trying to do. I'll be a weekly columnist when you see this wall street journal Just for a quarter of a century. I'm grateful that I haven't run out of opinions.
Excerpted from “A Fixed Idea of America” by Peggy Noonan, in agreement with Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 Peggy Noonan.
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