Craving a Broader Look

We in the media have become obsessive to a fault with anniversaries.

Normally, I bristle at all the commemoration commotion, all that energy making news from olds. But this Civil War stuff seems different. There's a sense of relevance and immediacy to it, despite the passage of 150 years. Maybe it's because the anniversary arrives at a time in history when we're craving a step back, a broader look, the bigger picture.

Ken Burns, whose documentary brought the war to a new generation, says that if you think of the country as a person, the war was a traumatic moment in its childhood. Maybe that makes today our midlife crisis.

No, we're not trying to erase the awful stain of slavery with bayonets fixed. Any 2011 politician suggesting that his or her state secede from the union is making a punch line, not a proposal. For now.

But like the mid-19th century's struggles between an agrarian past and an industrial future, the early 21st is a period of transition and deep anxiety - social, economic and technological. Some of us are convinced that we're losing sacred traditions and institutions, from religious faith to the American dream. Corporations, unions, government, technology are all getting shares of the blame from splintered factions.

We're in three military conflicts abroad and our politics at home looks a lot like guerilla warfare. Our elections are now angry waves, sweeping in one side and sweeping out the other. We can't help but have an uneasy feeling that this isn't going to end well.

In some ways, though, history is comforting. Half the country broke away, sparking a horrific war that killed more than 600,000 people. Large swathes of the South were devastated. Towns on both sides lost a generation of young men. The president was assassinated.

And yet, we survived. Sort of makes health reform, birthers and the deficit seem downright cuddly.

But history is also daunting.

Even after 150 years, so much business is unfinished. Old nerves are still exposed. The fight for equality in this country marches on, with barriers still being thrown in the road by angry folks who fear change or progress will end their comfort.

We still can't agree on what the Constitution means. Is our guiding document an immovable scripture of rigid dogma or a living, breathing embodiment of changing people in an evolving nation? That question still brings us nearly to blows.

We're divided now over so many things, dug in and intent on destroying the other side. We've got folks who actually believe that it's got to be all or nothing. Total victory. No surrender. Who needs cannons when you've got cable news?

But the ironclad truth is, when the dust settles and the shooting stops, win or lose, we're all stuck here together. Your enemies and opponents don't disappear into thin air. Nobody really moves to Canada.

Eventually, you have to leave the trenches, plug the cannons and figure out how to get along. That's what truly exceptional nations do.

Worth remembering.