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We Americans don’t
just agree with Whitman on this point: we hear him say this kind of thing
and we scream “Wheeeeeeooooow!” and pump our devil-horned fists
in the air along with his crankin’ self-as-measure-of-the-world beat.
For us there can be no found pleasure sweeter than that which we were the
first to find; no find more exciting than the one about which no-one else
knows. Now, this is ridiculous, of course; in Hinduism, the very idea of
learning something from any source other than a learned authority is considered
childish at best, and Buddhism agrees on this point, as do Islam and all
versions of Christianity until, surprise, American pentecostalism, which
believes that it’s how you feel about God that counts, not how God
feels about you. But really, what better way is there to learn what’s
true than from somebody who’s an expert on truth? Who better to teach
you how to play the saxophone than somebody who knows all there is to know
about playing the saxophone? It seems self-evident. Somehow we don’t
embrace this proposition in America, though. We never have. We would rather
remain blissfully savage if the alternative involved getting enlightened
by outside sources.
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