Today we celebrate the birthday of Walt Whitman, America’s greatest poet. He is the poet who most believed in America and Americans, who loved his countrymen the way Tupac Shakur loved black people.

His love of America and its people was love founded upon the promise of democracy and the promise of America. What a combination.

Democracy allows people freedom. America allowed people a continent to be free in. You could find yourself in America, or you could invent yourself. The important thing to Whitman was everybody be genuine, love being genuine, demand others be genuine.

He believed when people were genuine, America would be glorious. He assumed everyone has a divine spark, that one is individual and a great person when you let yourself shine. He believed America would produce the world’s freest and greatest people because of our spiritual potential.

Whitman’s faith and exuberance is often considered naive. After all they say, we had slavery. We also had murder of Indians and slums of immigrants.

It is encouraging to know somebody had the faith and wisdom, no matter how naive, to believe in the ideals of America. It shows the power of faith, the power of the word Freedom, and the promise of democracy that Whitman could live America’s mantras.

Hardly anybody has done that. That is the challenge he poses, and also the hope.

Can we avoid the bad side of democracy like Whitman did? Can we, from here on out, reject the relentless pursit of money and materialism inherent in democracy that has prevented us from shining, from being genuine, from being beautiful?

We talk about too much stress. In his time artists bragged about having melancholia – that century’s term for depression. He rebelled against melancholia. He felt great and was going to shout to the world about it.

Whitman dares us to give up our stress, our conformity, our greed. The exhortations to be yourself – to seek others to show your real self off to, to marvel at their real self – have never been more timely.

That would destroy most of our stress. Our inflated sense of importance and struggle would be released.

We have failed Whitman. We love America but mainly because we are rich. We do not love each other.

Poets have failed Whitman and America. They have utilized their right to free speech, but not to praise the essence of America or demand and inspire Americans to be relentlessly true to what is great in them.

We have never known the great self in us. This is one of America’s worst tragedies. Slavery and the destruction of Indians could have been forgiven had we produced a nation of beautiful people living with a divine spark.

Parts of America have sung. Individuals in America have sung. But we as a nation have not sung.

As our industrial might and financial might diminishes, the rest of the world will be imitating our worst habits. We have an opportunity to fulfill Whitman’s vision, to grow up now that we’ve had everything that is frivilous and dangerous.

We, I hope, will love being who we are at the same time we love each other. I hope too, that people throughout the world see radiant faces and twinkling eyes in America, and that they say with envy: America has arrived.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko