Sanity

Last Saturday, October 30, satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted the Rally to Restore Sanity (or, satirically, the March to Keep Fear Alive) in Washington, DC.  Over 200,000 people attended the rally, and over 2 million watched on TV.  A blogger for the Washington Post calls it our generation's Woodstock.  Clearly, it was a big event with meaning for many people, including me.

But, when I heard the title of the rally, I began to think about the meaning of the word "sanity."  The Oxford American Dictionary defines sanity as "the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner," "sound mental health," and "reasonable and rational behavior."  So what does it mean, in the context of Stewart and Colbert's rally, to restore sanity?

At the rally, people carried signs with messages ranging from "Real patriots can handle a difference of opinion," to "Does my ability to spell make me a socialist?" Stewart and Colbert performed various skits mocking the polarization and irrational antagonism visible in Washington and on the cable news networks. As one conservative rally-goer put it, the rally was about both sides "being able to take a joke...because we talk to each other, not shout at each other."  Another man said, "I'm tired of the silliness."

Thousands of people showed up to the rally in support of a more sane politics, one that, to use the definition, is more reasonable and rational.  To them, sanity means civilized discourse, compromise, tenants our country was built upon but seem lost amidst the vitriol of politics and 24/7 punditry.  As John Avlon wrote in an opinion piece for CNN.com, "We have to work together to solve problems, but our polarized politics and the partisan media are stopping our ability to reason together as Americans."  But why didn't Stewart call it the "Rally to Restore Compromise/Understanding"?  Because sanity is what we expect from each other, it is "normal," as the definition says, and it is necessary for the functioning of a successful society.  The word carries meaning for more than just the politics of the day; it is what our nation has relied on for hundreds of years and what it must revive for the future.

I think Jon Stewart defined sanity best.  At one point in his serious and sagacious closing speech, he pointed to a jumbotron screen showing traffic merging into a tunnel.  He then made up identities for the drivers of the cars on screen, from a gay investment banker to a fundamentalist vacuum salesman.  He said that, although the occasional jerk will cut off someone in the merging process, most of the cars will merge peacefully and without incident, whatever their beliefs or the political affiliation of the bumper stickers.  And the jerk will be chastised, not put on cable TV or in government.  That is how America functions every day.  That is sanity.  And that is what the Rally to Restore Sanity aimed to bring to Washington DC last Saturday.