One of the persistent American misunderstandings is that Thanksgiving is about celebrating abundance.
Norman Rockwell helped the myth along as much as anyone.
In his 1943 series, “The Four Freedoms,” the famous “Freedom from Want” painting depicts a smiling grandma hoisting a bird to the table with Uncle Ed there on the left eyeing up a juicy drumstick for himself.
The idea of abundance is key to the central features of the modern holiday: gluttony and sloth.
Uncle Ed’s grandson now plows through three plates of turkey and dressing and a bottle of wine before collapsing onto the sofa while his relatives scrub up acres of yam-caked and gravy-spattered kitchenware.
Rockwell’s splendid table would make even a poor hostess blush today. One normal-size bird, a covered dish, some cranberries and a dinky relish tray for 13 people? Where is the hormone-free, fried turkey? The prosciutto-flecked Brussels sprouts swimming in Asiago cheese? The $65 pumpkin pie from Dean and DeLuca?
If Grandma put out Rockwell’s spread today, Ed’s grandson would stay home and chow down on a turkey hoagie before falling asleep in front of the TV.
When Rockwell painted the happy clan, all grinning at the prospect of a big feed, America was an economically depressed nation struggling through a two-front world war. Grandma had to empty out her ration book to lay out even that humble spread.
Rockwell’s inspiration for that painting and the other three in the series was a January 1941 speech by Franklin Roosevelt before the start of his third term.
The “Four Freedoms” speech laid out Roosevelt’s aims for the world, not just the nation. These were the ideals he believed America should fight for once it joined the already raging war. In fact, they would become the foundation of his wife’s vision for the United Nations.
The first two of Roosevelt’s freedoms — worship and speech — were both enshrined in the First Amendment. The American government has always been obligated to protect its citizens’ rights to say what they wish and believe what they like.
It gets more complicated with the second two of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear.
Nice thoughts, perhaps, but dangerous organizing principles.
Individuals can strive for unachievable goals with little risk to others. If you want to build a rocket ship to the moon in your garage, you might blow yourself up in the process, but that’s your problem.
When governments get into the business of dreaming impossible dreams, things get dicey.
What if your freedom of speech is infringing on my freedom from want? If you keep organizing people to oppose the government programs that are keeping turkey on my table, our freedoms are in conflict.
History tells us which side usually wins out. The guy bleating about the repressive government gets shut up in a gulag or disappears one night.
That’s why our founders were so careful to make American rights about preventing the government from doing things to you rather than requiring the government to do things for you.
Even so, we’ve come to believe that plenty is part of the national purpose. Each generation expects to build on the abundance of the previous one and do so without risk.
But if we look at the most important thanksgiving celebrations in American history, the pickings were even slimmer than they were for Rockwell’s hungry, war-rationed clan.
The puritans in Massachusetts knew nothing but fear and want. They weren’t celebrating how good things were, but rather how God would deliver them from native tribes, starvation and pox of various kinds.
When Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday 80 years before Rockwell unveiled his painting, the tide had turned in the Civil War but much awful bloodshed lay ahead. Lincoln still urged his countrymen to celebrate “the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”
These were holidays that celebrated not ease and abundance, but the improbable providence that has made America the most favored nation in the world.
Today, the president and Congress are looking to create a new health insurance entitlement on the grounds that it is the government’s obligation to provide freedom from fear and want.
The reason for the national uproar over the plan is that no matter how stuffed with artisanal pumpkin pie we’ve become, Americans understand that new freedoms usually come at the cost of the old ones.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
