Heritage Lost

We are losing our heritage—everything that made us uniquely American, uniquely democratic and gave us the most flexible and utilitarian language in the world. We’re just letting it drift away—and that should give us pause.
I subbed again today—in a well appointed suburban school with lots of students headed for college and a bright faculty. I greeted one of those faculty members with a “Merry Christmas”, which momentarily baffled her until I explained that today was the Feast of The Epiphany, or the Feast of The Three Kings or Russian Christmas.
She smiled through her blank look. I couldn’t resist adding that yesterday was “Twelfth Night”, at which she batted my arm and admitted, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” I enjoy doing that sort of thing now and then.
(On St. Patrick’s Day I, a good and Protestant Hollander, try to wear orange. No one gets it or even notices it—although most of them wear something green. No doubt a white carnation—symbol of the House of Orange--would leave them even more oblivious.)
Today in one of my classes I showed part of the film, “Schindler’s List”. The kids didn’t get it. At all. One, with a confused look on his face, turned to me and asked if those were German uniforms on the soldiers.
The Hebrew Shabbat prayers at the beginning reduced them to snickering giggles, with no idea what they might be watching. When they saw people herded onto cattle cars, no one had any idea what was happening. Any and all undercurrents in the film passed them by with neither understanding nor impact. (Only the explicit sex scene evoked any interest.)
I realized it would take hours to give these seventeen year olds any idea of what was going on in the film, what it was all about. I didn’t have the time and, speaking from experience, these kids would not have hung in for the explanation.
Occasionally I will give an historical or Biblical reference when giving an assignment in an English or history class. Blank, bored looks. The backgrounds of historical figures—whose actions dramatically affect the lives of these kids now—are of zero interest.
Something as esoteric as Genghis Khan (whose conquest of Asia made the Marco Polo trip possible and began the quest that sent Columbus to America) or Napoleon leaves them totally clueless—a cluelessness utterly without curiosity.
Make a Biblical reference today—forget the religious aspect—and see how many kids can recognize names like “Judas”, “David and Goliath” or “Samson and Delilah”. A college English instructor of my acquaintance got so frustrated at the inability of her students to recognize Biblical allusions in literature that she taught a whole section on common Biblical names and terms.
She was as irreligious as a human can get, but she understood that a huge amount of our cultural heritage goes out the window of the reference points are lost. It isn’t just the Bible. When I was in high school we covered Bobby Burns.
See how many students reading Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” can tell you that the title comes from a Burn’s poem—let alone which poem! Go through a modern literature anthology and see how many of the short stories and poems come out of the English/American past. Very few.
THAT’S our heritage. Kids go through school never exposed to Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, let alone Bronte, Chaucer, Milton or Jane Austen. What about Jack London or A. Conan Doyle. THAT’S our tradition—that one that formulated our language and our American heritage.
The books have lovely stories from Africa, South America and Asia. I do not denigrate them. But they are NOT the building blocks of THIS nation—and OUR language.
Next time, let’s take a quick look at what happens when a culture loses—or never gains—its own distinctive characteristics and traditions.