Lost Arete

When in his teens, William Cullen Bryant penned his great elegiac poem, "Thanatopsis." His poetry flows gently off the tongue if read aloud, matched with sentiments of peaceful resignation to the ways of nature and the world. The lines "like he who wraps the drapery of his couch/ About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams" - are typical. Bryant also was a journalist and a translator of the Greek epic poem, "The Iliad." He disliked the convention of his day to use overblown language; for example, commence instead of begin or devouring element for fire. He pursued excellence, encapsulated in the Greek concept of virtue, or arete. In whom does arete reside today? In whom the goal of utilizing one’s gifts to their fullest? In whom does nature and God provide transcendence? After his death in 1878, much mourned by his American public, an admirer characterized him as a "good and venerable man." One hundred and thirty years has provided sufficient space and time for the admiration of goodness and greatness to fade so that high school girls can compete in a pregnancy competition. We now have the socialist, left-wing Democrat as a candidate for President of this country. He symbolizes and manifests ideals and ideas counter to the soul of America. Neither sluts nor a socialist exemplifes the pursuit of excellence or virtue. No higher faculties are in play. Sadly, a generation or two or twenty laid the groundwork for such disgraces. Ours is not the America about which Walt Whitman sung in his poetry. Ours is a culture in which I want to curl up into a ball and die.