3. Guthrie's Egalitarian Dream: American Creed and the American Dream.
"The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Guthrie, perhaps due to his experience with the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl and his fall from middle class as a child, sought to give a voice to the working class people. He advocated through his songs a less liberal economic system that would lessen the gap between the rich and the poor. He wrote songs like, I Ain't Got No Home, and Do Re Mi, that reveal the darker reality of the American Dream, we aren’t all equal, hard work instead of giving me more money, has only got me more hard work. How was Guthrie to inform and inspire a people whom live in, and are influenced by, the consumerism of a capitalist mass society? If the people who have the most of the wealth are comfortable, socioeconomic change is less likely to happen. What myths of American were at work in Guthrie’s mind, and how did they shape his art? Though Guthrie failed to bring about a new Egalitarian Dream in his lifetime, his art and songs are still relevant to today's society; in that, for a more just and equal society to exist, it first needs social and economic reform, and the reform happens when the poorer people unit, organize and force change to happen.
Born into wealth and having it diminish to nothing before his opportunity to inherit it might of caused something to change in the mind of Guthrie. For example, he’d work at an odd job for a few days and when he’d get his pay, he sometimes would just give his money away to someone on the street (Klein 38). With this example, the model of Christian charity is part of Woody Guthrie’s Egalitarian Dream, a dream where everyone looks out for each other—where the strong support the weak. He apparently wasn't interested in making money, or inheriting it either, but he saw that inequality present in the working class people, and tried to help them realize that they as citizens of United States could change policy if they only would recognize their collective power and unite as a people.
When Guthrie went to California during the Great Depression, he saw the migrant camps full of poor families. He identified with the Okies and Arkies there struggling to simply survive and fought to create unity among the workers. Woody, like most Americans, believed in the values of the American Dream--do what is right, be honest, work hard and you can achieve anything. However, as he struggled to enlighten laborers to the reality of their situation with his leftist honesty and all-American virtue, (Listen to Do Re Mi here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46mO7jx3JEw) Woody started seeing himself as a kind of prophet-singer and took on a role that separated him from “his” people. Here is the democratic artists dilemma, "At the same time that the democratic poet is to be of the people, a citizen with no special status in a society which has transcended class distinctions, he or she must also inspire and instruct the people, awaken in then a sense of their dignity and wisdom. Such a mission seems to place the poet in a special class, one reserved in former ages for religious leaders (Pascal 48). While Woody is trying to gain popularity with the people by claiming to be one of them, he is also placing himself in a separate class. Whitman knew of this need to enlighten and relate at the same time, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he absorbs it" (Whitman 729).
The above is also an example of the contradictory nature of the American Dream and democracy, its emphasis on individualism and equality. The question Guthrie may have never asked himself is, “is the dream more about the individual or the country?" For the answer to this question, I offer a quote from scholars, Stephen MacNamme and Robert Miller:
The American Dream has at its core an emphasis on the individual. According to the ideology of the American Dream, we are 'Masters of our own fate.' We 'go our own way' and 'do our own thing.' For Americans, 'it all comes down to the individual.' The American emphasis on individualism is not a historical accident but is firmly rooted in the religious, political, economic, and cultural experience of America as a nation of immigrants. (MacNamee, Miller 4)
Guthrie must have seen the Great Depression and its far-reaching poverty, as a historically opportune situation to engage the public and push for more commonality. Woody's answer to the economic inequality present in the U.S. at this time was social activism and Socialist policies. He supported the Bonneville Power Association, aka BPA; a government funded social building of dams along the Columbia River to generate electricity for the public. Guthrie loved the power of the government to bring a communal spirit into action; the result of the BPA was large amounts of cheap, renewable energy for the public's use.
However, the authenticity of Woody’s socially communal protest crumbles when contrasted with his rough and tough individualism.
He became obsessed with his role as an artist and creator. For example; he wrote his initials on most every doodle and verse, yet his work and songs have a naturalistic quality to them—they seem to have come from nowhere (Turner). Moreover, as Guthrie gained artistic momentum and popularity he began to see himself as a divine American prophet of the people, a role that is problematic if one claims to be a common individual of the communal whole.
Woody may have felt that to validate his vision and work he needed to be digested and accepted by the people of the nation. Scholar Richard Pascal comments on how Guthrie and Walt Whitman both created art that was aimed to bring more equality,”
The above example, again points to the conflicting nature of the two core American values of liberty and equality—the key components of democracy. Together equality and liberty form the American democracy, the checks and balances, a democracy ruled by a middle class majority (Huntington 18). The declaration of independence boasts a creed in favor of both, equality for all men, as well as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is true that these two ideals found a common dwelling place in America. Scholar Samuel Huntington states, “They developed in conjunction with, not in opposition to, each other, representing not so much the political values of opposing social classes as the opposing political values of a single middle class” (Huntington 17). It seems Guthrie interpreted liberty and happiness through a lens that saw “social health” as happiness, rather than through the lens of economic power and consumerism representing happiness. Furthermore, Guthrie wasn’t a part of the decision-making middle class, none of the people he supported were.
Picture from:http://thepeoplescube.com/current-truth/unions-lenin-and-the-american-way-t4214.html
One problem Woody Guthrie faced in his goal of informing and empowering the people of the nation was that he couldn't come across as preachy. In politics it the same way, the more specific/overt the message, the more cleavage, rather than consensus, is the effect (Huntington 18). Guthrie had to portray his message in a naturalistic way so that working class could come to their own conclusions without being told what to believe (Pascal 51). For this example I offer the subtle protest found in Guthrie song, Pastures of Plenty:
Listen to Pastures Of Plenty, by Woody Guthrie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2DJvgNlMA
Pastures Of Plenty
It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold
I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes I slept on the ground in the light of the moon On the edge of the city you'll see us and then We come with the dust and we go with the wind
California, Arizona, I harvest your crops Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine To set on your table your light sparkling wine
Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down Every state in the Union us migrants have been We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win
It's always we rambled, that river and I All along your green valley, I will work till I die My land I'll defend with my life if need be Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free
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By Woody Guthrie
Written in 1941.
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~~~He strikes a communal identity with any laborer with the lwords "mighty hard row my "poor" hands have hoed. He is poor economically and bodily. Keeping his message covert, he embodies the landscape of the U.S.--he's everywhere, in the hot desert and cold.
~~~He speaks here to the laborers again, signifying the Okies and Arkies coming from the dust bowl, "come with the dust, and go with the wind."
There's nothing to keep the workers there, they get blown away because they're not wanted anymore.
~~~He glues the worker and the landowner together and shows them their connectedness. He works in "your orchards" and harvest "your" crops. Here, he shows the rich how he provides them with comfort with his work, which gives them "sparkling wine."
~~~Then he mentions there are "pastures of Plenty", they are fertile vast. They could be savior of the people if they were shared by the people. Here, "union" symbolizes our national unity and the need to organize laborers to"fight till" they "win."
~~~Here, Guthrie is talking about how he will work forever "till I die" to help to change the world so that the pastures will some day be "free"
Guthrie's message in Pastures Of Plenty is covert, but powerful. It calls the people of the land to care for each other and share.
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The more broad the definitions of the American Creed, “support for liberty, democracy, majority rule, minority rights, freedom of speech and religion, and less clearly, equality approaches unanimity from virtually all groups in the American public” (Huntington 18). Equality is assumed to be present in the American Creed; it is its vagueness that allows it to become part of nation identity. If equality is blindly assumed to already exist by the masses, how could Guthrie have any success in persuading the populous to socialism? Moreover, it is the more educated and active members and leaders of communities that are more likely to support the values of the Creed (Huntington 18). “The consensus of the values of the system, in short, is broadest among those most active in the system and who benefit the most from it (Huntington 18).
Guthrie was fighting against a vague Creed of the middle class, a Creed that floats above those who aim to change it. “Those with higher socioeconomic status are also less likely than those of lower status to perceive major differences between the values of the system and the reality of the system” (Huntington 18).
Whitman gambled for an awakening of the soul of the country, just like Guthrie did, “Whitman’s bold gamble is that the public may be awakened thus, converted from the pleasures of passive consumption, so conducive to unwitting subservience to the covertly hierarchical authority of the text, to the liberating joy and challenge of “athletic” reading.” Apart from just doing what feels right, Woody felt that he could really bring about change for Americans. Perhaps, Guthrie gambled, just as Whitman, in part because he had an even greater audience at his disposal, “revolutionary new communications industries had rendered a greater proportion of the populace more accessible, on more levels, to public messages of exhortation and persuasion (Pascal 51). By 1940,”electronic media, radio, sound recording, and film, signified that the potentially vast readership of the previous century had been eclipsed (if not supplanted) by a listening and viewing audience truly national in scope, nation-sized” (Pascal 51). According to Richard Pascal, Guthrie clearly sensed that the airwaves and recording technology might be exploited for social progress and change, “for arousing the masses to a realization of their inherent dignity and latent wisdom and power” (Pascal 51).
But the Media and technologies were being used in ways that did not strike Woody as noble or virtuous, Woody attacks capitalism and greed:
I don’t guess you could find a very big radio station that’s willing to make these songs very famous. There’s a little bunch of fellers that twist a cool million dollars out of the sweat and blood of the folks that made up these songs. If they was given a half, even a fourth of a chance these songs would strike a light in the heart of the people that would spread like a prairie fire on a dry, windy day. Woody Guthrie
In the end, the American Creed still vaguely points its finger toward an ill-defined equality while putting personal freedom first, high above, and perhaps out of reach of Woody’s Egalitarian hopes.
Cartoon by Stahler, 2003.
In conclusion, Woody’s life and his accomplishments are a prime example of how the ideologies of the American Creed and American Dream influence the culture of the United States and manifest themselves in contradictory ways—“the gap between our promises and our performance” (Turner 8). Woody was a patriot that sought to bring attention to the ideological gap between the American Creed and the reality of its performance. Furthermore, Guthrie’s life proves the validity and performance of Mass and Folk culture as a functional way to study the, “patterns of meaning and consciousness across and among different segments of the population” (Levine 1399). These ingrained American ideologies of equality and liberty shaped Guthrie’s life, his identity and his art.
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Works Cited
McNamee, Stephen J. and Robert K Miller, Jr. “The Meritocracy Myth.” Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. Print
Klein, Joe. Woody Guthrie: A Life. New York: Dell Publishing, 1980.
Pascal, Richard. "Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie: American Prophet-singers and Their People." Jounal of American Studies. 24 (Apr 1990): 41-59.
Turner, Fredrick. "Just What in the Hell Has Gone Wrong here Anyhow?" Woody Guthrie and the American Dream. American Heritage Magazine 28 October 1977:6.
Woody Guthrie Publications Inc. 21 octoberr 2010. 29 October 2010.
http://woodyguthrie.org
Suisman, David. Reveiw: This Land Is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie.
The Journal of American History, Vol. 87.3 (Dec. 2000), pp, 973-977.
Levine, Lawrence W. The Folklore of Industrial Society: Popular Culture and Its Audiences. The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No.5 (Dec., 1992), pp. 1369-1399.
Cray, Ed. Ramblin' Man: The Life And Times Of Woody Guthrie. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2004.
Huntington, Samuel P. The American Creed and National Identity. American Politics: The Promise Of Disharmony.
Harvard Univerlity press. Massachusetts, 1981.
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