The Brooklyn Rail

“It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.”
—Henry David Thoreau

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
—Toni Morrison

America thrives as a magnet for those who are willing to work and to dream. America attracts and draws upon the strength of its people who come from every part of the world. One can migrate to France, Germany, Italy, China, Brazil, or elsewhere, but one will never be fully accepted as French person, a German, an Italian, or as Chinese, or Brazilian. The situation is somewhat different for those, myself included, who follow our pursuits in the arts and humanities, and who would be likely to proclaim that culture is our only true country. That is in part because we know that the old countries we have left will never welcome us back, and that we often have not felt entirely at home in our new adapted home. For myself, I can say that upon arriving in New York, this city of remarkable cosmopolitanism and dynamism, I was so eager to call myself a New Yorker (with a degree of self-centered pride) that I never once questioned how such a city could exist without being situated in America, a country with a very special and unique origin and history. But now, I realize, I am very much an American. 

These thoughts lead me to remember what E.B. White observed: 

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. … Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

It is useful to remember that New York initially had another name. It was first called New Amsterdam by the Dutch settlers (1624–26), then was renamed New York, after the Duke of York during the British rule (1665–1783), and so it has remained to this day. This brief history reminds us that Britain learned to recognize itself as a premiere maritime power after the Dutch Empire and Portuguese empires became less powerful. Then came the US, which at the end of WWII became the successor of Great Britain’s four-hundred-year empire. One might even say that on this coming July 4, the United States will celebrate its eighty-first anniversary as a very powerful but somewhat reluctant empire.

In thinking of our current civic life, which has become especially polarized—often filled with contempt and vitriol—since Donald Trump’s first presidency in 2017, we must rethink aspects of our own short history. After having joined our allies in fighting Nazi Germany, Italian Fascism, and the imperial army of Japan, the US entered its “American Century,” but with a deep sense of humility and awareness of its fierce rival, the USSR, and to some extent China, which has long been trying to overcome its “Century of Humiliation” (1839–1942).

After the war, the 1950s were a decade marked by a culture of moral realism, as there was substantial social capital and trust in the military and in government, as well as corporations and local communities; but at the same time it was also known as the decade of conformity, and even anti-intellectualism. The 1960s was the decade of social justice and legislative gains, such as the civil rights act, extended voting rights, and women’s liberation. But at the same time it was plagued by political assassinations and the war in Vietnam. While the social chaos of the 1960s continued into the 1970s, and led to increased drug use and a high crime rate, it was explosive in the visual arts, film, and music production. Then came the re-establishment of old fashioned traditionalism in the 1980s, which gave rise to the “golden age” of American capitalism and the dawn of the digital age. And it too was also associated with cultural excess, and the Cold War tensions between the US and Soviet Union that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this point, we think of the 1990s as the decade of cultural synthesis from the economic boom, and the technological revolution, to the collapse of the Soviet Union that brought an end to the Cold War. Nevertheless, it was marked by the early economic recession that prompted the rise of social inequality, and brutal international conflicts, such as the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. As for the 2000s, many of us may refer to it as the decade of another technological boom, and a new social connectivity with the election of the first ever Black president, Barack Obama, in 2008. Yet there was a real loss of faith in our own safety after 9/11, which resulted in the Iraq War, followed by the financial crisis that precipitated a greater loss of common trust, which in turn intensified the psychology of fear and humiliation at home that quickly spread across the world.

The question we ask ourselves now is how we will recognize the basic paradox of leadership, which is that those endowed with virtuous attributes rarely seek power for themselves, in contrast to those who prey on fear and resentment to gain dominance and wealth. Can the culture of selfishness, egoism, and lust for power be replaced by altruism, generosity, and honor? The history of human struggle has repeatedly reminded us that it always begins with small acts of love and courage from our citizens who rise as counter-frictions against tyranny by marching, protesting, standing up for others. For example, consider what Alex Pretti read to a war veteran he cared for: “Today we remember that freedom is not free; we have to work for it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it.” So though we are mindful of the constant shifts that occur between rupture and repair, we are nonetheless confident that what really shapes history has always been the product of shared beliefs and shared values—the kinds of social behavior that are tied to the arts and humanities, which we refer to as culture. Humanism is therefore the most effective antidote to nihilism, and missionary activism is an effective means of opposition to mercenary exploitation. Humanism is the most effective arsenal to counter inhuman oppression. 

An especially effective corrective mechanism of the US constitution is the power it gives to the people to assert themselves in midterm elections and in the four-year reelection cycle. The sun rises, the sun sets, the sun rises again. We and our fellow human beings have our own agencies of power in deciding what kind of world we would like to live in. Given the recent defeat of Viktor Orbán, who has been the Trump administration’s most admired icon of dictatorship, one thing we can rest assured of is that while democracy may face many challenges here in the US and other parts of the world, so do autocracies. 

Onward, upward with love, courage, and cosmic optimism as ever,

Phong H. Bui

P.S. This issue is dedicated to the extraordinary lives and works of our friends and mentors Melvin Edwards (1937–2026), Alexander Kluge (1932–2026), Agosto Machado (?–2026), and Pat Steir (1938–2026), all of whom made profound contributions to our humanist tradition in their respective disciplines. It would be hard to imagine the critical issue of race, labor, and violence without Melvin’s enduring welded sculptures in abstraction. For Alexander, the aspiration to embrace film, text, and television with non-linear structure was his form of resistance to filmic convention. As a performance artist, the vibrancy among fellow artists who were victims of the AIDS epidemic became the subject in Agosto’s endless, ephemera-filled shrines. Known for her wall drawings and “Waterfall” paintings, Pat’s lifelong work was fiercely dedicated to liberating all conceits of mind/body as well as the West/East predicament.

We’d like to send our deep thanks to Production Assistant Elle Gordon for her commitment and care to our monthly production. We send our best wishes for the next steps in her journey. Meanwhile we’re thrilled to welcome Yasemin Ulug as our new Programs Assistant. Lastly and most timely, we salute James Rohrbach, who has stepped down from our Board of Directors to undertake the role of the Rail’s first-ever Executive Director. Having reached twenty-five years of sharing the essential expression of artists—free without mediated motives to our various communities—we feel that under James’s leadership the Rail is poised for a new chapter of elevating greater cultural slowness against technological speed and social intimacy against social distancing, among other arsenals of human creation against destruction.