Our "Manifest Destiny"

Thornton Wilder, author of the play, Our Town and various novels, once offered a shrewd guess about the search for community in this country. We are “disconnected” from the past and even the present, he believed. “There is only one way in which an American can feel himself to be in relation to other Americans – when he is united with them in a project, caught up in an idea and propelled with them toward the future.” A common vision of the future can bind us together and help us understand who we are.

So our forebears were caught up in the work of “making the world safe for democracy” or completing the “evangelization of the world in this generation.” The themes of “manifest destiny” or “the American century” aroused different generations to anticipate a great future.

Perhaps that explains why some in past generations have been card-carrying members of what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “the party of the Future.” Their images of the future, in turn, helped form various interpretations of giving. So giving can become a response to an envisioned future. The “golden age” that is coming in the years ahead of us – and not behind us in some receding era of excellence – inspires generosity.

Yet “the party of the Future” in America has seldom been of one mind about either the future or the right way to give. Here, for example, is an enduring argument about giving that stretches over two centuries.

•  “All seems possible? All within reach”? A turning point of history lies just ahead. It creates a sense of crisis and emergency as well as a dazzling awareness of radical changes. The discomforts and sacrifices of the present count for little when compared to the prospect of on-coming triumph. Heroic giving is therefore the order of the day. Our movement – Emerson rightly spoke of the “party of the Future” as a “movement party” – could help hasten the advent of a new era.
• A true sign of progress? Movements come and go. The merry-go-round of fashions in causes seems to spin faster and faster. But there is another way. Teaching others about disciplined giving gradually opens the way toward new futures. The increase of “good” givers from one generation to the next is a sign of progress. Slow but steady.

While the “party of the Future” has dominated American thinking about giving, the loyalists in the “party of the Past” have also been active in every generation since the 1820s. Ralph Waldo Emerson called these folk “the stationary class.” That dismissal hardly does justice to the ablest thinkers in this camp. Their spiritual ancestors had found a place to stand, a truth to be cherished and therefore a way of resisting the fads and fashions of succeeding generations. Change is not always good. “Progress” can represent a decline into barbarism. And so they took their cues from a revered past. Keep the faith as pure as possible in this land of confusion. Recover ancient truth.

In the meantime, let’s turn to the argument within the “party of the Future.”