You never know what to expect when a politician speaks. I didn’t know what to expect when Ralph Nader spoke about his new book, The Seventeen Traditions. I knew that he was a politician and had run for the presidency in 2000 as a third party candidate, but little else. My dad told me he was a liberal. I wondered if a liberal could have a good side. His book looked like it was about traditional values that should be implemented into society, but I didn’t know what values.“This is the shortest book I’ve ever written,” Nader started at the book discussion, “but it’s long overdue.” Why? It’s overdue because the times are changing for the worse. The rest of his speech detailed why we need to look at foundations to change times for the better. Nader found his foundations in his family life as a child.
“We aren’t seeing enough people rising to leadership,” Nader said. He suggested that the solution may lie in civic education and other basic units of life. He asked, “What generates civic spirit?” His answer: the family unit. “If you ask anyone involved in civic activities how they got started in those activities, they’ll tell you it started with a friend or family member that took them to a speech, rally, protest, or event of some kind.”
Nader talked about what we can gain from the foundations of older generations. He pointed out that not only did people communicate more orally in older days, but they listened to nature and to those around them, whereas today it’s all about virtual reality instead of real sights and sounds.
Nader said that he was disciplined by proverbs, not by shouting. “There was a proverb for every conceivable occasion,” he commented. His parents made sure that their disagreements weren’t shown in front of their children. “When dinner came,” he said, “mother didn’t ask us what we wanted to eat. We weren’t old enough to know what we wanted to eat.” Life was full of hypotheses, logical arguments, and conversation. He was in a continual state of learning that would eventually make him what he is today.
One day he asked his mom if he could have long pants since all the other boys’ mothers let them wear long pants. She replied, “They’ve got their mothers and you’ve got yours. Why are you afraid to be different?” This made him realize that standing out was a good thing.
Another time Nader’s mother asked him if nature was for sale. He knew the answer was no. That got him thinking about all the other things that shouldn’t be for sale, such as democracy, elections, and education.
Nader recalled an example of the shaping of his mind. At school one day, a friend of his looked at a girl and said, “What a pig.” “I thought about it all the way home,” he said. “I wondered why my friend would say such a thing. He seemed a better person when he was younger. It got me thinking about discrimination. Too many jobs today are based on looks instead of personality or qualification.”
Nader concluded, “we all should look back and try to find wisdom and try to find the things that work.” He also asked, “Do you love your country?” If you love your country, he said, you should work harder to make it a better place. Most places of influence were contributed by individual benefactors. Nader said there should be more benefactors in this world. “It’s no soup kitchen charity, it’s institution-building.”
Overall I agree with everything he said. When it comes to education, we need to study the old as well as the new. Part of the reason the newest generation lacks in leadership is that they aren’t observing, reading, and interacting enough. There is a lot more initiative to be taken and a lot more potential to be developed.
A reform of the family is needed. The Village may have its role, but the Family lays the foundation. Our politics may conflict and our practices of family living may differ, but we agree that the American family needs revitalization.
The real entertainment came during the question and answer time, which was heated with arguments that required security intervention. One person shouted that George W. Bush should be imprisoned. Two audience members wouldn’t stop interrupting the people who had put their hands up to ask questions. These protestors demonstrated how their families failed to instill in them respect, manners, and a sense of relevance.
Nader ended by recapping his lecture. He said students need to stop rationalizing their failures. “If others can do it, so can you! Kids need to stop making excuses for themselves!”
Nader is a good speaker, and I believe he has a good heart, too (or at least good foundations), even if he is a liberal.
Works Cited
Nader, Ralph. Discussion of The Seventeen Traditions. Barnes and Nobles. Union Square, New York City. 30 Jan. 2007.
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