By: Patricia M. Giordano, Esq.

On a recent crisp, bright Saturday morning, I was standing in line for session two of the Gettysburg Film Festival featuring the works of Ken Burns.  The evening before, Mr. Burns, along with Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, spoke on the Lessons of Lincoln. This day, he and his partner Sarah Botstein would be speaking on the challenges of  democracy followed by an interview during which he and Susan Eisenhower  would be discussing the consequences of elections. Everyone I spoke with was kind, offering tips on staying warm while we waited for the doors to open. Despite the cold, all seemed right with the world.  However, I kept thinking back to the evening before when I was reminded of the hostilities leading up to, during and after the Civil War, as well as those leading up to, during and after the World War II and then again, the Vietnam War- all divisive events in our country’s history. I was struck too that despite the myth of “the good old days,” the truth is that the United States has rarely had times of peace.

Later, after Saturday’s events were long over, I was struck most by Ken Burn’s comment that while he started out making movies about the United States, after 50 years, he’s come to  realize that he has actually made movies about us- about we as Americans.  As he pointed out, division defines us.  Or as Betty Werlein Carter[1], a well-respected Southern journalist, pointed out in Huey Long, a Burns’ documentary about the  threat of authoritarianism disguised as populism disguised as democracy, “we all have a worm in our apple.”   

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that attack and fear-mongering form the bedrock of our country.  Common threads appear throughout our history:  the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the culture wars; the election of 1800 to pretty much every election thereafter; Jim Crow to eugenics to Prohibition to anti-immigrants to immigration quotas to antisemitism to isolationism to caged children; anti-poor; anti-women; anti-suffrage; anti-ERA and anti-choice. Essentially anti-anyone who isn’t me or anyone who isn’t us, however you define “us.”

And look at our own state- it’s south Jersey versus north Jersey; it’s allegiance to the Philadelphia sports teams versus the New York teams and everyone versus the Yankees!  And contemplate this: as attorneys we are always  on one side of the “v” or the other- it’s always  us versus them or depending on your perspective, them versus us.

So nearly 250 years after our founding, where does that leave us? Another generation of “us” versus “them” - only now we attach diagnoses to explain our malaise: anxiety, depression, fear, paralysis. 

So if this is us, then why do we think this generation is any worse than any other generation?  It isn’t.  Once you accept that fissure is within us, that it defines us, then perhaps we can live civilly.  “You do you” and “I do me” but together we can be better.

Recognizing that “sometimes you can’t  make it on your own,” perhaps for now it is enough to heed the call of those famous poets hailing from another nation of malcontents:

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now
You got someone to blame?

. . .

Did I disappoint you
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

. . .

We're one, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other

. . .

You say love is a temple, love a higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law
You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl
And I can't be holdin' on to what you got
When all you got is hurt

. . .

One life with each other
Sisters, brothers

One life but we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other

. . .[2]