Been There, Done That!

I find myself using the phrase “Been there, done that” quite often these days.  The expression suggests that I’ve been in the situation or I’ve experienced the kind of happening you are talking about—“I’ve been there, done that!”  I use those words more frequently now that I’m 75 years old, but the expression has been around and in use since the early 1970’s.  There is now a party game called “Been There, Done That,” and country music singer-songwriter Luke Bryan has written a song with the title, “Been There, Done That.”  

Like most other phrases, “Been There, Done That!” bundles up a lot of different meanings for different folk.  One of my friends always reminds me these days of something he heard me say many years ago (or thinks he heard me say many years ago).  He says, I said, “History teaches us that we’ve been through this trouble, or acted out this foolishness before, and somehow we have always survived.”  My friend says, that gives him hope—that whatever trials and tribulations may come our way, we will be able to overcome them and survive.  “Been there, Done That” and made it through!

Reading Jon Meacham’s book, The Soul of America, reminds me of where we as a nation have been before and what we have done before—and it is not a pretty tale by any means—and yet we as a nation and people rose above our own sordidness and cruelty by “letting the better angels of our nature” come to the fore.  If we rose above bigotry and cruelty of another time, we ought to be able to call on those “better angels” again and rise above our present bigotry and cruelty.

During World War I, President Wilson and the Congress  restricted freedom of expression (the First Amendment) in the name of national security.  (We always use “national security” as an excuse!)  It was illegal to “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States.”  Magazines and newspapers were censored and some suppressed.  Sound familiar.  We’ve been there, we’ve done that already—let’s not do it again!  Let’s let our “better angels” sing!