"Assembled in China" - © James Wilson
I've been working on a couple of projects the last week (including a follow up post to my first one on negative feedback) but nothing seems to be clicking. I recently read an interview with actor Hal Holbrook, who plays Mark Twain in a one man production, and the comments he made on our country in Twain's time compared to today has stuck with me. The seriousness of his comments and my desire to take action seems to be blocking all other creative thoughts.
Here's a short excerpt from the article. I just found a piece I'm going to put in the show next time about America's love affair with money, and the terrible corruption that went on and, of course, is going on now in high places, corporations. How the common folk get it in the ear, they get left. If I can remember some of it, he says: "This is a strange panic, like a blight that has fallen on us. It's as if a mighty machine has slipped its belt and is still running and accomplishing nothing. The phrase 'laying off' has become common. Laying off of two and three thousand men has become familiar. There is a widespread laying-off from one end of the country to the other, with the discharging of one out of every three employees in all the humble, small shops and industries across America."
He later goes on to say, It's hard to be American and not be optimistic. We have that gene in our national character. But this, I believe, is a far more disastrous event in American history then we even realize today. It isn't only that we have allowed certain people to plunge this country -- and the world, in fact -- into a terrible economic disaster through chicanery and greed. This time, unfortunately, it comes at a point in history where we are no longer self-sufficient. We don't have two oceans protecting us anymore. We are dependent on other countries much more than we were before. We've become weakened by the rise of countries like China, which are going to produce much more in conflict with our own best interests. We have somehow allowed ourselves to shoulder our way around the world in an attempt to bring democracy or "the American way of life" to places so ancient that they don't want it.
The world has changed, and we're going to suffer deeply if we keep trying to do that instead of spending half the money we spend on a war on helping people to have a better life. Our country has been a pinnacle of hope for so many people. All around the world we've had the love and the admiration of so many people, and we've lost a lot of that through unwise thinking. Mark Twain said another extraordinary thing: "Shall we? That is to say, shall we go on extending the blessings of civilization to the people that sit in darkness, or should we give those poor things a rest? Should we bang right ahead in our old-time, pious way and commit the new century to the game, or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first?"
Isn't it amazing how similar the issues and events of Twain's time and ours is? What is our generation (and future ones) to do to fix them?. The country was still young and had so much to offer 100 years ago, but today we have pushed so far that we can no longer rely on ourselves and must reach to the rest of the world to keep us going. Everywhere you look today are products and services rendered elsewhere, whether fuel, furniture, electronics, machinery, food and now even money. Our country has sold off so much of itself to foreign investors it's hard to see us ever gaining it back.
The more I think about it, the more I feel we are at a crossroads. One way, the way we've been doing things, is an easy gentle downhill stroll. There's plenty of nice, exotic things to stop and to fill our stomachs with and to entertain us, but eventually it plummets straight off into the gates of hell and an eternity of agony and pain. The other is harder, it's up hill and winding. We can't see very far and at times may feel uncertain about where it will lead. There's food and entertainment, but we must work harder to find or create them. Though this path is more treacherous and difficult, it's the only way to avoid falling into the abyss.
"Orbis #1" - © James Wilson
As a photographer I believe it's important to document what has lead us to where we are today, whichever road we end up taking and what the results are when we get to it's destination. Hopefully the future generations will be able to learn from our mistakes and make the right choices. Unfortunately history tends to repeat itself and if we haven't been able to learn from the history documented by artists past, how will the future ever learn from artists present.
Jimmy
Hal Holbrook's comments from a 2009 interview by Aaron Hillis published on IFC.comhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmynotjim/5005181955/
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