Anchoress has been reposting some of her older posts this week. I dropped by and read this one, originally posted in 2004. I think you might want to as well.
The very beach on which we stood had been for many the motor which drove acquisition of wealth, education, lessons in dance, music, tennis, all of which fostered additional, continuing excellence. I saw all of this and thought about the everyday people who had punched their time clocks day after day to build such a treasure, and I felt such a sense of pride and admiration well up inside me that I couldn’t speak for a moment. When I could, I turned to the fellow and said. “Look around you. Are you blind? Look at America! This venue seats 14,000 people, on a waterfront, surrounded by something natural and wild that we worked to integrate! And it’s not here to serve elites who take themselves and their money seriously! This is a crowd of suburban people who worked hard all week and don’t particularly feel the need to go into Manhattan to affirm themselves or their lives when this excellent and beautiful theater is right here! You think Europe is so much better? More soulful, did you say?” I shook my head. “Both spiritually and philosophically, Europe is asleep, because it wants to be. But it’s a terrible sleep, because it is a sleep without dreams, and everyone knows that sleep without dreams leads only to madness and a terrible decay. America is not asleep. In fact, America is wide awake and bustling and busy and creating and building. Yes, I know, the hard work idea again, I know you don’t like it, but a body at rest stays at rest. America is wide awake and moving…and even still, somehow, she dares to dream. America is dreaming, even now.”
Some cannot see that, sadly.
She writes well.
Yes she does.