The common man. What happened to him?
Where did he go? Is he only in Steinbeck novels or Copeland fanfares? Is he
relegated to fictional characters and musical compositions? Was O. E. Rolvaag
wrong in the epistolary tale of, “Giants of the Earth” where the common man was
sacred and personified in stories of immigrant’s survival and success?
We have forgotten, in our modern
technological agglutinations to honor, to praise and to emulate the common man.
Somehow we’ve been conditioned to only respect and elect the specialist.
Where did the common man go? Did he
disappear within the Utopian future we are always seeking, but never find?
Is he only alive in fictional characters elevated to real-life greatness by the
imagination of fine authors?
Have the entitlement mores of our current
social and political structure diminished the values, ethic, and desire for the
return of the American common man?
I
don’t have the answers to all of my questions, maybe you do.
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