Is it possible to be so incredibly insightful, well-informed and write so well? Is Bill Moyers an angel? A Muse? A Saint?
One thing is for sure: He is a lover of Democracy, a fan of the Declaration of Independence and an enthusiastic scholar. His latest contribution, Discovering What Democracy Means, delivered on February 7, at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, reminds us artists, writers, journalists - us thinkers of dangerous ideas - of who those have come before us.
The following is excerpted from a speech he made following the acceptance of the first Frank E. Taplin, Jr. Public Intellectual Award for "extraordinary contributions to public cultural, civic and intellectual life" presented to himself, and his wife, Judith.
Moyers begins:
We are often asked whether our kind of journalism matters. People are curious about why we give so much time to novelists, playwrights, artists, historians, philosophers, composers, scholars, teachers-all of whom we consider public thinkers. The answer is simple: They are worth listening to.
snip...
Critics said these programs taught no one how to bake bread or build bridges. And they were right. Despite public television - not to mention symphony orchestras, municipal libraries, art museums, and public theaters - crime was still rampant, the divorce rate was soaring, corruption flourished, legislatures remained stubbornly profligate, corporations cooked their books, liberals were loose in the world doing the work of the devil, and you still couldn't get a good meal on the Metro to Washington. Why persist, some members of Congress wanted to know, when there are so many more urgent needs to be met and so many practical problems to be solved?
I did not have a tried-and-true answer for members of the committee. I could not hand them a ledger showing that ideas have consequences. I chose instead to tell them what they could have learned if they had been listening to the people who appeared in our broadcasts.
Moyers then proves his argument - that great debate over great ideas - is essential to the care and maintentance of a Great Democracy. So many examples of leaders, teachers and inspiring broadcasts are highlighted in this uplifting and readable speech that it is impossible to blockquote very much of them. But my personal favorite was this one, a tale of plumbers gone wild - ly inspired by their right to think for themselves!
Many years ago we produced a series called "Six Great Ideas" with the didactic, irascible but compelling philosopher and educator, Mortimer Adler-one hour each on liberty, equality and justice, truth, beauty, and goodness. From the deluge of mail I kept two letters that summed up the response. One came from Utah.
Dear Dr. Adler, I am writing in behalf of a group of construction workers (mostly, believe it or not, plumbers!) who have finally found a teacher worth listening to. While we cannot all agree whether or not we would hire you as an apprentice, we can all agree that we would love to listen to you during our lunch breaks. I am sure that it is just due to our well-known ignorance as tradesmen that not a single one of us had ever heard of you until one Sunday afternoon we were watching public television and Bill Moyers came on with Six Great Ideas. We listened intensely and soon became addicted and have been ever since. We never knew a world of ideas existed. The study of ideas has completely turned around our impression of education ... We have grown to love the ideas behind our country's composition, and since reading and discussing numerous of your books we have all become devout Constitutionalists. We thank you and we applaud you. We are certain that the praise of a few plumbers could hardly compare with the notoriety that you deserve from distinguished colleagues, but we salute you just the same. We may be plumbers during the day, but at lunch time and at night and on weekend, we are Philosophers at Large. God bless you."
And finally, touchingly, he return to what he knows best: The personal.
...a story about Helen Keller is worth remembering. Toward the end of her career, as she was speaking at a Midwestern college, a student asked: "Miss Keller, is there anything that could have been worse than losing your sight?" Helen Keller replied: "Yes, I could have lost my vision."