Driving to campus each morning, my route takes me past the spot where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, dedicating the cemetery in which Union war dead are buried.
My mind inevitably is on other things — the lecture I am about to give, student papers I am grading, or the shopping list my wife texted me — but all of that stops for a moment when I reach the peach orchard where Pickett charged and my thoughts turn to profound questions of sacrifice, service and liberty.
A few seconds later, I am jolted back into the world again at the stoplight where I look at the McDonald’s, the Best Western and Tommy’s Pizza.
This intersection divides hallowed ground from mere real estate.
Real estate is commodified land, plots of earth used as means for financial ends — investments to be developed for the sake of profit. Hallowed ground, on the other hand, is a place made sacred. Perhaps it is, like Little Round Top, because of what happened there, or, like the Soldier’s National Cemetery, because of who is laid to rest there. Sometimes it is like the Grand Canyon, revered for its splendor. In all of these cases, the place is set apart, reserved for all to connect with the deeper values it represents.
In the last week, the very notion of hallowed ground was challenged. At Arlington National Cemetery, former President Trump’s press team staged campaign photos at a place where the law forbids partisan events. He stood over a fallen Marine’s grave with a broad smile, giving a thumbs-up, and the moment was then used in a campaign ad.
At the same time, it was revealed that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had put forward plans to place golf courses and pickleball courts in state parks. The places set aside to preserve natural beauty would be reclaimed instead for utilitarian purposes.
In both cases, the notion that these were sacred places designated for solemnity was rejected for shallow self-interest.
Lest anyone think this is a partisan issue, recall that the cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated by Republican President Lincoln and that national parks were established by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. Traditionally, both Democrats and Republicans have been committed to the hallowed ground within our nation.
But the death of the sacred and its resurrection for crass commercial or partisan use is not limited to space. It has also leaked into time.
It has become a cultural cliché in the last decade that Thanksgiving is an occasion to be dreaded. What was once an annual recreation of a Norman Rockwell-like scene of domestic cohesion, where the whole family came together to count their blessings, eat too much and watch football, is now an unholy political battlefield.
Who does not have that one uncle who is going to turn the day into a partisan warzone of anger and division? How many spouses are going to give “the look” across the table, bringing up wordlessly a promise not to respond to anything political for the sake of keeping some façade of familial togetherness? Thanksgiving is a high holiday in the country’s civil religion, a national moment dedicated to appreciating our privileges and the gifts we share as Americans. But that sacred time too has now been profaned.
This is more than just unfortunate collateral damage in the culture wars. What we jointly hold to be sacred defines our collective constitution. That which we designate as beyond exploitation makes a statement of the people, for the people, and by the people, about the shared values to which we are committed, the values that form the moral and intellectual beating heart of the nation, and the values that make us, us.
This chipping away at hallowed ground and time is not trivial; it is the paper upon which our social contract is written. We need disagreement, we need a diversity of ideas, we need passionate discourse, but such civil interactivity requires a universal commitment to the values that are encoded in our connection to special spaces and special times. That we must honor.
Steven Gimbel is the William Bittinger professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College. His books include “Einstein: His Space and Times” and “Isn’t that Clever: A Philosophy of Humor and Comedy.” Stephen Stern is the chair of Jewish studies at Gettysburg College. His books include “The Unbinding of Isaac” and “Reclaiming the Wicked Son.”
