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In 1855 in his first preface to Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman’s democratic vision was clear, bold, and optimistic, not yet clouded by events and democracy ’s rude growths. But after the Civil War and with the publication of Democratic Vistas, he had become painfully aware of freedom’s failures: rampant hypocrisy in literature, political corruption and business frauds, and social posturings and overreachings, among others. Most troubling was the widespread failure of belief: Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believ’d in . . . nor is humanity itself believ’d in. . . . The spectacle is appalling. We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout. The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men.1 The widespread loss of faith had resulted in a disappointing lack of progress toward democracy’s “higher,” better promises that originally animated Leaves of Grass. Instead of experiencing a rebirth of its multiform freedoms, democracy had been sidetracked after the war. The nation had become overconcerned with national power and empire, “materialistic development,” and “popular intellectuality.” The certainty of progress was in question—Whitman’s hope was now “desperate”:2 3 Walt Whitman Higher Progress at Mid-century Portions of this chapter were previously published in Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, “Walt Whitman’s ‘Higher Progress’ and Shorter Work Hours,” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 26, no. 2 (2008): 92–108. The author gratefully acknowledges permission granted by the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review to include portions of the article in this chapter. WalT WHITMaN 49 I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in materialistic development, products . . . is, so far, an almost complete failure in its social aspects, and in really grand religious, moral, literary, and esthetic results. In vain do we march with unprecedented strides to empire. . . . It is as if we were somehow being endow’d with a vast and more and more thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little or no soul.3 Nevertheless, Whitman persevered, reaffirming his original vision with Democratic Vistas, willing his optimism to endure, believing that his nation, having “appointed” and satisfied the “body,” would again pursue democracy’s Higher Progress.4 Reread sympathetically rather than queried or interrogated, as many scholars now prefer, Whitman’s texts reveal replies that he might offer his present-day critics. Such a reading might also re-present his critique of modern developments, reexposing undemocratic growths that yet entangle individuals and confound the nation.5 Such a reading might reaffirm Whitman’s vision of the “underlying principles of the States” as an eminently practical and inspiring alternative to what he despised but now has nearly triumphed. Whitman would almost certainly have approved such a project, for his prospect was always the future, his voice prophetic. He expressly intended to speak to the generations to come, confident that his words and vision would speak to the future even more than his contemporaries. He believed that we would understand and embrace him to renew belief. Believing, we then would find practical ways to realize democracy’s vision, which he re-presented. The Progress of Freedom in Three Stages like many of his countrymen and European philosophers he admired, Whitman believed that progress meant the advance of freedom. With Democratic Vistas he attempted to explain more fully than he had before how one liberation encouraged the next and how civilizations advanced in stages, each stage founding the next higher and freer level.6 Whitman also believed that the United States was leading the way, continuing to spread basic political rights to disenfranchised, exploited, and enslaved groups. However, progress was not simply the expansion of human rights, vital though such a widening might be. Freedom’s progress also entailed a qualitative change, an advance from fundamental political rights and basic economic freedoms and opportunities to higher physical, mental, and spiritual possibilities , an advance Whitman called “higher progress”: The world evidently supposes, and we have evidently supposed so too, that the States are merely to achieve the equal franchise, an elective government—to inaugurate the respectability of labor, and become a nation of practical operatives, law-abiding, orderly and well-off. Yes, those are indeed parts of the task of america; but they not only do not exhaust [3.19.56.45] Project MUSE (2024-04-20 05:17...

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