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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Author Roger Rosenblatt

Aired July 07, 2002 - 07:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Celebrations of our nation's independence has taken on a deeper significance this year after the events of September 11. Patriotism is perhaps never been stronger in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. And author Roger Rosenblatt's new book, "Where We Stand, 30 Reasons for Loving our Country," is a collection of essays on the American spirit and character.

CNN'S Anderson Cooper talked with him about patriotism and the Fourth of July. -- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROGER ROSENBLATT, AUTHOR, WHERE WE STAND: I think it's different for all of us since 9/11. We're much more alert to why we like the country and what we think about it in all its complexities. And we're probably much more prone to sentimentality and to feeling deeply the sympathies with those people who were lost in 9/11.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's talk about patriotism a little bit. I mean, the book that you write is a very patriotic book, but it's not the kind of patriotism you hear yelled on cable channels. It refers to a quiet -- at times a very humorous patriotism?

ROSENBLATT: I think patriotism really gets a bad rap when one only associates it with a weapon or something that people used as an exclusionary element to keep other people out or thoughtless thing. We live in a very rich, complicated, wonderful country. And the patriotism that goes along with those complications seems to me to be just right.

COOPER: Let's talk about some of the regions you love America. One of them, my favorite in the book is that Americans like to wave.

ROSENBLATT: I'm so glad you said that, because that one just occurred. I mean, some of these pieces were written for the times and for a time before. And most of them were written new, but that one just came to me.

COOPER: What is it about the wave? I mean, it has some sort of symbolic importance?

ROSENBLATT: The thing was that I found myself, I live in a small village on Long Island, and people waved to one another. And my guess is everyone in this village has waved to everybody else in the village at one time or another. And I began to understand that as something as an expression of the freedom that we've got. We're careless people, you know, an exuberant people. And we just wave to everybody. We wave to truck driver. Truck driver waves back to you. And it's a small gesture.

And I don't want to make too much of it, but I also don't want to make too little of it, because I remember traveling in the Soviet Union years ago with a teacher. And we were walking through Moscow. And it was a celebration of some sort. And I noticed a lot of people staring at me. I didn't think I looked any weirder than usual. And I said to the young woman, "Why are these young people staring at me? I don't seem to look different from Russians." She said, "Oh yes you do. You're not afraid." And that was, you know, and that goes into the new wave business.

COOPER: Right. When I read the wave chapter, I actually remembered -- I actually went down the Mississippi with my dad, because he was born in Mississippi and wrote about the state. And I went there when he was on a book tour. And I remember driving down a small country road with him. And every person we passed by, while they were driving, they would just -- they would hold up their hand and wave to the other driver. And I thought he knew everyone in the state, basically. It was my introduction to the wave.

ROSENBLATT: I think -- I mean, we're so blessed with the freedoms that we have. You asked at the beginning is it different this year. One of the things is that we're much more aware of the size and the depth and the variety of those freedoms.

COOPER: You also write in the book that we won't be hornswaggled (ph). That's another reason you love it.

ROSENBLATT: we will not. I also love the word "hornswaggled (ph)." It's like all that cowboy lingo that I love, that had no meaning. But I use the example of the Clinton, Monica business, which loomed so big not that long ago...

COOPER: Right.

ROSENBLATT: ...and now seems so petty.

COOPER: Certainly in the media.

ROSENBLATT: And certainly in the media. And the media led the kind of charge against it. But I always love the common sense of the people. And it can assert itself. They knew exactly the size of this story. They knew the size they wanted. And it didn't rise to the size of an impeachment they said so. And it happened the way the people wanted.

COOPER: You also write that most people in this country, when left to our own devices, behave pretty well. And I think that's very true.

ROSENBLATT: I'm very pleased by this. I think it's actually improved in my lifetime. I refer to it half tongue in cheek as an evolutionary improvement that people are starting to behave better. I don't see mobs anymore. You know, I'm glad. I hope we don't see anymore mobs.

But I just like the kindness, the sympathy of people. Another piece that you may have enjoyed in the book was this thing that we're dignified. That's what I said dignified, because we're not supposed to be. We're supposed to be a vulgar country. But I think our dignity comes from sympathy with one another, our capacity to join hands and know when we need one another.

Not saying other countries don't have that, but we have it in real abundance.

COOPER: Is there -- I mean, can there be such a thing as too much patriotism? You know, right now, wearing an American flag is very much en vogue. And I was in Afghanistan recently. And a special forces soldier who I was working with turned to me and said, "You know, no one was wearing an American flag a year ago. And now all these people walk around with American flags. Why weren't they wearing it, you know, a year ago or two years ago?"

ROSENBLATT: I don't know the answer to that, but I do think that we'll know when there's too much patriotism. I really trust people to work out balances in their lives, to have a kind of sense of things. Certainly, we'd know there's too much patriotism if it becomes simple minded and jingoistic. I haven't seen as much of that as you would have thought we would have seen since 9/11. It's been kind of quiet and tempered and fair minded, which is the best sort of patriotism.

COOPER: Does it worry you, I mean as someone who, you know, as you say in this book have many reasons to love our country, when you travel overseas, does it concern you other people's image of America, the way other people see Americans?

ROSENBLATT: Yes, I remember -- I don't do as much traveling and reporting as I used to, but I remember getting really ticked off about that because I knew they didn't understand this country. And we're using categorical hatred, just the way we have from time to time in our own history, which is the worst kind of hatred.

COOPER: And what do you think it is that they hate? I mean, what do they not get about America?

ROSENBLATT: Well, for one thing, we are a kind of weird place in the history of the world. We elaborate on our freedoms and further elaborate and say to each other, "Oh, we won't take this." And then we do. And then we tolerate it. And then we go on. And we don't develop our hierarchies. And we have a kind of odd, but wonderful sense of humor about ourselves.

But the other thing is, of course, that we're the biggest kid on the hill. And that automatically gathers hatred.

COOPER: We're also not that innocent, as you say in the book. ROSENBLATT: We are not that innocent. I'm so glad that you pointed that out. We were -- we call ourselves innocent during the attack of 9/11, but it was the narrowest definition of innocence, meaning that we weren't used to an aerial attack. We're not an innocent country. There's never been an innocent country in world history. We wouldn't want to be an innocent country. And that's the point of the little essay, that we learn from our mistakes.

Brown versus Board of Education was because we were not innocent after Plessy versus Ferguson and the idea of separate but equal so- called doctrine. And then still, after Brown versus the Board of Education, we had the killings and the church bombings and the murders of civil rights workers, and on and on and on. And little by little, we get a little better because we are not innocent, because we know how to profit or we try to know how to profit from experience.

COOPER: All right, Roger Rosenblatt. Thanks very much for coming in.

ROSENBLATT: My pleasure.

COOPER: And if I see you on Long Island, I will wave.

ROSENBLATT: I hope so.

COOPER: OK.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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