Spirits of America by Jeffrey Tucker

Only a few lifetimes ago, things were very different in the United States. Originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social-class boundaries were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive, and able to do much for themselves independently, and to think for themselves. We were something special, we Americans, all by ourselves, without the government sticking its nose into and measuring every aspect of our lives…¹

— John Taylor Gato

I started our new series, Draw Your American Heritage, because I want young people to be proud of their American Heritage. Obviously, there are things not be proud of, but we cannot let these things negate the many, many things that Americans can be proud of. The Globalists and their useful idiots want to destroy America and all countries by implementing one, homogenous society that they control: no unique culture, no unique history, no inspiring architecture, no morality, no religion and absolutely no patriotism.

Jeffrey Tucker’s Spirits of America: On the Semiquincentennial (the 250th anniversary of the United States) reminds the reader of the great American traits we’ve been losing for many decades. His book is both a review of another book that was written before America’s 200 year anniversary in 1976: The Spirits of ’76 by Eric Sloane and his own thoughts about what the Spirit of America is. Sloane’s book was published in 1973 and is currently out of print.

Tucker relates this story which conveys how far our country has descended into wokeness, something Sloane was not around to see:

A few years ago, I revisited Monticello, the home that Jefferson built. I took the tour, which had been revised to fit in with 2010s-era fashion for hating on the Founding Fathers. The guide had almost nothing good to say about Jefferson, who, despite failings, has long been revered the world over as a voice of emancipation.²

The man who wrote one of the most important documents in the history of the world, The Declaration of Independence, receives little respect in the world of woke. Colleges teach their students to be ashamed of America as do many of our public high schools.

Tucker goes through Sloane’s book chapter by chapter, quoting him, elaborating on his insights and marveling that 50 years ago Sloane lamented and understood the direction the country was headed in.

There are fourteen “Spirit” chapters in the book: The Spirit of

• Respect
• Work
• Frugality
• Thankfulness
• Pioneering
• Godliness
• Agronomy
• Time
• Independence
• Awareness
• Enterprise
• Physicality
• Localism
• Forbearance

Some of these chapters are based on Sloane’s book and others are Tuckers’ own. The point of the book is distilled in this sentence from the first chapter:

We need to rediscover the foundations of civilized life, and recapture the spirit that made America great.³

Young people especially need to know and internalize the great American Spirit that built one of the greatest countries in the world:

We hope to preserve what is great about this country by rallying around certain principles. Thomas Jefferson took the American experience and framed it into a philosophy, one that has swept the world and remains the dominant orthodoxy of understanding. Our job is simply to recall and make it real again.⁴

This is a good little book. The print edition runs 132 pages. Tucker’s got some good stories and good insights:

By all means, let’s use digital technology to better human life but not control and ruin it, which it is certainly doing now. We need all in our own lives to seriously rethink and rediscover what we have left behind, whether that is cooking, gardening, playing music, reading physical books, or simply hopping in a canoe and paddling around a lake.⁵

He ends the book with this:

A final question for us and our country: do we merely exist day to day – dreading our lot, feeding disgruntlement, waiting for its end – or do we aspire to create a better future? There is a foundational difference in these two ways of thinking and being. Merely existing means caring nothing for principles. Building a brighter future for ourselves and those who follow us must necessarily study and take recourse to the past – its values, its ideals, its practical realization – as the basis on which we live, work and decide what that future is.⁶

The American Spirit is growing again. It was never lost, obscured and attacked, yes, but never lost. Let’s make the American Spirit dominant again, make the American Spirit something to be proud of. That spirit is not about political parties, it is about being an American, knowing our roots and living out the ideals of the American Spirit: “Simple things. Beautiful things. Physical things.”⁷

Notes

1. John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, Forward by Zachary Slayback, 2017, (first edition 1992), New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada. pp. 10-11.
2. Tucker, Jeffrey. Spirits of America: On the Semiquincentennial (p. 18). Kindle Edition.
3. p. 12.
4. p. 13.
5. p. 80.
6. p. 91.
7. p. 80.