“Political crises are decisive moments in socities.”
The book The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public; Social Communication in Crisis contains essays that deal with reactions across the nation to the assassination of Kennedy and how the reactions moved and changed with media and between people. I decided to focus this week on one that combines assassination and politics, The Kennedy Assassination and the Nature of Political Commitment.
The essay discusses what the Kennedy assassination showed about American politics, and how the average man felt about it.
Firstly, it generalizes, crises put institutions to the test. It is in these testing times that major events can occur, and when people “not ordinarily involved in politics are suddenly deeply involved,” and learn the true nature of their political system.
This is shown most simply in the ease of transfer of power from one President to another. No one spent the time after Kennedy died jockeying for power, and there was even very little change in the direction of policy. The American people accepted that this is how the American government works, with no question. This is fundamental to the validity of our government.
The emotional reaction to Kennedy’s death was telling of the connection that Americans have with the public families– people are often quoted as saying they felt as if they’d lost a member of their own family. Despite the fact that they knew it was an important political issue, it was a much more personal issue to them. Socially, we attach emotional meaning and commitment to the common symbol that stands for the unit– in this case, the President to America– and so we react when they are attacked. This can be seen when people attack or defend the person at the head of a political party rather than their argument, and are offended when people do the opposite.
Also, interestingly, despite all the controversy due to Kennedy’s Catholicism, religious services were held all across the United States after his death. Verba, the author, suggests that this illustrates an underlying religiosity to even our most secular institutions, even if it is not specific religion based. Governmental institutions “may have a significance of a religious kind”. And so that places the President (or any other major political leader, really) in a curious head-of-church sort of position that makes him even more defensible.
Next Verba gets into discussing the effects of a crisis, and what specifically this crisis had on the American public, which I think will be a good place to look to for next week.
This essay as a whole is 12 pages, if we want to use it. I think it would be of more use than anything I’ve found thus far, because it ties back more to what the others have been talking about.
Greenberg, Bradley S., and Edwin B. Parker. The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public; Social Communication in Crisis. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1965. Print.