Because Presidential history is one of my fields of study, I’m often asked who is my “favorite” President or who I rank as the “best” President.  George Washington is my answer to both, and we downplay his significance at the cost of understanding what the Presidency really is, and what it could have been if Washington were different.  I wrote a version of this piece a couple of years ago on his birthday to explain my thoughts more fully.

Do you know what day it is? Other than Thursday? It’s George Washington’s birthday. Yes, President’s Day was last Monday, but today is Washington’s real birthday. Since we’re in a heated political season (but when are we not, these days), the presidency is something we think about almost continually, but today especially we owe it to ourselves to reflect a bit on Washington.

“He didn’t do anything special, he was just the first,” is what you often get from people these days about Washington, reflecting the general diminution of him and his legacy in the popular mind. He’s the guy on the quarter and the dollar. Didn’t he chop down a cherry tree once, too? And have wooden teeth? He’s almost all caricature. But downplaying George Washington is emblematic of a thousand different things our contemporary culture does that keep us from having a proper relationship with our history. Without such a relationship it is as though we as a nation awaken anew each day with only a dim recollection of the knowledge we gained the day before.

But the American Revolution took the course it did, and the United States emerged as it did, largely because of Washington. The presidency over which we fight today didn’t have to be established as it was. It was, in fact, a very experimental thing and many people suspected it might evolve into a king. Washington being the first president, and even more, his willingness to step aside after just eight years were crucial to its lasting success. Poet Robert Frost said that George Washington was “one of the few people in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power,” and Washington is notable because he dedicated himself to a cause more interesting to him than his own self-interest, a cause bigger than his own ambition. In a sense he was more important for what he didn’t do, for the actions he chose not to take, and for denying any personal ambition. That’s a much more difficult thing to celebrate but it’s a far more important quality in a politician than we admit these days when our candidates promise endless action.

In the larger sense, it’s good to remember that America didn’t just happen in a predestined path. It was created—its institutions were thought out by people with a certain set of political and social convictions, not to mention personal character. As much as anything, it should be from a sense of gratitude that these convictions were what they were (instead of something else: the convictions of Napoleon, for instance) that we should celebrate the birth of certain people. But instead we often water down the idea of character and conviction as though we ourselves shy away from such a standard.

Lumping George Washington into a bland “President’s Day” instead of allowing ourselves time to reflect on his unique position does a disservice to everyone, in addition to the institution of the presidency itself. In part we remember and honor Washington because in some important way his ideas have a value that transcend time and individualism, and are convictions that we ourselves—not to mention our contemporary politicians—would do well to set our course by. It’s about honoring an individual and being thankful that he allowed himself to be guided by some things and not others, and the distinctiveness with which such an allowance marks very few individuals in history. That these things can be said about Martin Luther King, Jr. just as certainly as about Washington speaks to the justification of celebrating them both independently of those who happened to share the same vocation. Benjamin Harrison—a fine fellow in his own right, I’m sure—was nevertheless no George Washington in the same way that Jesse Jackson, say, was no Martin Luther King. We celebrate something unique when we celebrate particular birthdays like these.

The future depends on our having and nurturing a proper relationship to our history, one that is itself living and emotional. Without such an attachment, our very future as a nation is subject to erosion by a thousand competing winds. As we survey a global landscape potted with what we now clinically call “failed states” we ought to pause to appreciate our success. For just as in its creation, the maintenance of the United States doesn’t just happen either, although some people seem to think otherwise. Our memory has a purpose, and it ought not to be diluted. Preservation happens through our remembering specifics. Specific events, specific people. Not simply “Presidents.” The memory of George Washington deserves better than that. So do we as a nation.

Today, Waco is finally unveiling the first part of the long-awaited Doris Miller memorial, commemorating a local hero who was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Here’s what I wrote back in 2013 about the ongoing efforts to create it.

Franklin Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941 as a “date which will live in infamy,” and indeed there’s much about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 72 years ago that still inflames our sentiments. But as surely as the years pass, the infamy associated with that date, like that from most battles, attenuates, and the living are left with the duty of commemoration—not of any villainy involved, but of the valor displayed by those who fought.

This crucial transformation of perspective is of the sort Abraham Lincoln crafted in his Gettysburg address, and in similar fashion, today we remember Pearl Harbor through those who there gave the last full measure of devotion.

Of all the heroes from December 7—that is, of all those people whose actions under fire were motivated from a sense of selflessness—none was less likely than a sailor named Doris Miller. His story is inspiring, but, as is necessary in the heroic, it has its deepest root in the commonplace.  Miller was a native of Waco who dropped out of high school during the Great Depression and joined the Navy at age 19.  He was soon assigned to the battleship West Virginia as a mess attendant. The morning of December 7 Miller was on duty below deck. Within moments after the attack began, seven torpedoes had struck the West Virginia, plunging the ship into chaos.  Miller rushed topside to his battle station—an antiaircraft gun amidships—only to find it had already been destroyed.

Miller and the ship’s communications officer then rushed to the bridge to assist the mortally wounded captain. After moving the captain, Miller manned a machine gun (on which he’d not received training) and returned fire against hundreds of Japanese planes. When the attack ended he began the grim work of pulling wounded sailors from the oily water.

In May 1942, Miller received a commendation by the Secretary of the Navy and was awarded the Navy Cross, the first African American so honored. The citation praised his “distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor.”

He found himself something of a celebrity. His image was used in naval recruitment posters throughout the war, and the War Department sent him stateside to give speeches on war bond drives. Eventually he was transferred to duty on an escort carrier and died when it was torpedoed and sunk in 1943. In 1973, the Navy honored him by naming a frigate for him, and in 2010 the post office remembered him with a stamp.

Now an organization called Cultural Arts of Waco in Miller’s hometown is raising funds to build a national memorial to him. The city of Waco donated two beautiful acres downtown along the Brazos River for a memorial site, and a national search was undertaken to select a landscape architect to design the memorial and a sculptor to create the statue that will be at its heart.

Successful artistic commemoration is more sought after than achieved. The selflessness inherent in Miller’s legacy is conveyed not through gigantism (think Sam Houston towering over I-45 in Huntsville) but through intimacy. Nor does it emerge when the individual is abstracted to the point of being a kind of vague Everyman. This in fact is what created such a fuss around plans to build an Eisenhower memorial in Washington, D.C., with even Ike’s grandchildren feeling compelled to weigh in. Architect Frank Gehry’s initial designs somehow managed to make no reference to Eisenhower’s role in WWII nor to the man who later became president of the United States.

A hero is one who embodies the abstract idea of selflessness, so an effective memorial needs to involve both abstract and traditionally representational elements. This is precisely what the planned Miller memorial in Waco will offer its visitors: a statue of Miller at just over life size situating the man himself within an abstract layout that implies his naval service.

Once the memorial is completed it will be one of the most distinctive in the country to any serviceman, and a fitting tribute to Miller and, by extension, all those who served on December 7.

“I had impressions both pleasurable and painful as I looked upon the great procession of veterans which swept through the streets of this historic capital to-day; pleasurable in the contemplation of so many faces of those who shared together the perils and glories of the great struggle for the Union; sensations of a mournful sort as I thought how seldom we should meet again. Not many times more here. As I have stood in the great National Cemetery at Arlington and have seen those silent battalions of the dead, I have thought how swiftly the reaper is doing his work and how soon in the scattered cemeteries of the land the ashes of all the soldiers of the great war shall be gathered to honored graves. And yet I could not help but feel that in the sturdy tread of those battalions there was yet strength of heart and limb that would not be withheld if a present peril should confront the Nation that you love. And if Arlington is the death, we see to-day in the springing step of those magnificent battalions of the Sons of Veterans the resurrection. They are coming on to take our places; the Nation will not be defenseless when we are gone, but those who have read about the firesides of the veterans’ homes, in which they have been born and reared, the lessons of patriotism arid the stories of heroism will come fresh armed to any conflict that may confront us in the future.”

“And so to-night we may gather from this magnificent spectacle a fresh and strong sense of security for the permanency of our country and our free institutions. I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defense in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people. And so, as my furlough is almost done, and the train is already waiting that must bear me back to Washington, I can only express again the cordial, sincere, and fraternal interest which I feel this day in meeting you all. I can only hope that God will so order the years that are left to you that for you and those who are dear to you they may be ordered in all gentleness and sweetness, in all prosperity and success, and that, when at last the comrades who survive you shall wrap the flag of the Union about your body and bear it to the grave, you may die in peace and in the hope of a glorious resurrection.”

President Benjamin Harrison, August 12, 1889

Almost 50 years ago, the art critic Leo Steinberg published an essay with the evocative title “Contemporary Art and the Plight of its Public.” In it, he addressed what might be called the “understanding gap” between working artists and the public, along with the growing tendency of the public to be confused—if not completely put off—by what artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were then creating.

Decades later, that plight hasn’t diminished much. Looking at a lot of what is celebrated today as art, the public can register only confusion. If the plight is any less than Steinberg diagnosed in 1962, it may only be because the audience for contemporary art has simply shrunk so much that it no longer registers as part of the public in any significant way.

We are usually comfortable thinking of the paintings, sculptures and other things in museums as art, but what about the works being created today? Are they “art” in the same way? Is there an element of time that has to elapse before they become “art?”

It can sometimes seem a little presumptuous to say that contemporary art is museum-worthy without letting the added element of time slowly do its leavening work on the judgment of those in the know. Why should we rush to bestow the label of “Art” on, say, something that looks like nothing more than a florescent light hanging at a diagonal, just as we do on a portrait of St. Paul by Rembrandt? In 300 years will people be marveling at that? (But 300 years ago did they marvel at the Rembrandt?)

“Contemporary art is constantly inviting us to applaud the destruction of values which we still cherish,” Steinberg wrote, “while the positive cause, for the sake of which sacrifices are made, is rarely made clear.” He actually wrote this sentence thinking primarily of artists who sometimes feel like their own established styles are threatened when art spins off in a radically different direction. Matisse, for example, called Picasso a hoax and an outrage in 1907. A year earlier, however, an established painter named Paul Signac saw a new canvas by Matisse and thought it was disgusting. Matisse had “gone to the dogs,” he wrote a friend.

Yes, it’s true that every generation has its outrages, and today both Matisse and Picasso are regarded as brilliant and visionary artists, and their work, even though familiar, still captivates. But it’s also true that one of the more troublesome elements in our society is its impatience. Processes that by their nature take time are now somehow seen as illegitimate. Our hunger for immediate satisfaction in this regard can come in two contradictory ways: on the one hand it can be a demand that contemporary art be acknowledged now and held on a level with the Masters of the past. On the other hand, if a work is somehow difficult or an affront to our tastes (as Picasso was to Matisse), we want immediately to toss it aside as nothing more than a purposeful insult to what we hold dear.

Either position does no favors to art. Having a good eye for the contemporary, whether it’s a painting hanging in a gallery or a work of public sculpture that you drive by on your way to work every day, means being willing to take it on its own terms initially, and only over time begin to measure it against the great weight of the past. It takes an odd and perhaps paradoxical combination of patience, acceptance, and discrimination. But that’s the recipe for appreciating contemporary art.

This column originally appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald on September 29, 2011

“A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.  It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language.  It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

–George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946