This is from Walt Whitman’s preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass–an essay, a rant, a sermon, and prophetic manifest, call it what you will. It deserves to be read, and more so, its dreams deserve to be realized.
Walt Whitman dreamed about an America that was radically egalitarian, constantly reflective, and fully democratic–not only in government, but also in our daily interactions with fellow Americans. Here’s an excerpt, reminiscent of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah.
There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done. They may wait awhile … perhaps a generation or two … dropping off by degrees. A superior breed shall take their place … the gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place. A new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest. The churches built under their umbrage shall be the churches of men and women. Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all events and things. They shall find their inspiration in real objects to-day, symptoms of the past and future… . They shall not deign to defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul. They shall arise in America and be responded to from the remainder of the earth.
Walt Whitman knew that Democracy, if it was to come to its fullest manifestation, would demand that the ancient hierarchical structures of political power be dismantled and the Church’s top-down structure of privilege, holiness, and position as gateway-keepers to the divine be leveled to the ground.
