Where's The Swagger?
Has it been replaced with fear?
Last week I read a great essay written by a man who is concerned that his profession has lost its ‘swagger’ and is greatly suffering because of it.1
Reading that essay made me wonder if Freemasonry, and Freemasons have similarly lost our swagger. Perhaps audacity is a better word.
That belief that as Freemasons we are called to greatness, and that Freemasonry can bring greatness about.
There was a time when our Craft, and Masons, had a heck of a lot of swagger.
When the Masons of Chicago decided in in the 1890’s that they wanted a new Masonic Temple they didn’t mess around. They built the tallest skyscraper in the world. When the Masons in my little City of Centralia decided in the 1920’s that the wanted a Masonic Temple, they built the second largest and best looking building in the City. Examples like these dot the landscape throughout the United States, and many places throughout the world.
Today, when Masons decide to build a new Masonic Temple, more often than not it will end up looking like a pole barn, and be built as cheaply as possible.
Just a bit over 100 years ago, the Shriners had a public relations problem. Their partying was thought to be out of hand to the point that newspaper editorials raged against their gatherings.
They could have hired a spokesman to tell their side of the story. Or a public relations firm to burnish their reputation.
They didn’t bother with that.
Instead they started Children’s Hospitals. Today there are twenty-two Shriners Children’s hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, plus five additional clinics. All providing world class care, without any cost to the families they serve.
Can we envision our Craft doing something similar today?
Why not?
These are of course not the only examples of Masonic greatness. They are just two standout examples of things our Craft Lodges, and our Appendant/Concordant bodies have done.
Doing these things, and things like them were shockingly audacious. They sure as heck showed an awful lot of swagger.
They also point to a distinct lack of fear among our Brothers. The Brothers of Chicago, Centralia, and the Shrine gambled everything to pull off their larger than life plans.
And that brought success.
Who wouldn’t want to join an organization that met in the tallest building in the world?
Who wouldn’t want to join an organization that met in the nicest building in one’s small city?
Who wouldn’t want to join an organization that wandered out and created the world’s finest hospital care for the children of North America?
Even for all of those who didn’t join, how did they view the Masons who were able to accomplish such things? Talk about reputation!
Contrast that to today, when so many Masonic decisions are guided by fear. When much greatness of the past is preserved, but little new of that status is built.
We can learn from the past.
We can get our swagger back!
We can once again do audacious things!
Let’s remember to Live the Legend.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/06/media-journalism-swagger-00154659
For me it leads back to some of my concerns about the future of modern masonry where we have year after year cheapened it out on it. I see so many lodges propped up by 5 or 6 dedicated brothers who work tirelessly that by the time they can step back and be proud of there efforts something else has gone entirely wrong.
We used to build all these buildings and like you mention, now they are all cheap and what gets the job done, versus let build a monument to the craft in which we can be proud as workman in the quarries.
And yes some of these grandiose buildings have caused great hardship for our fraternity, but this leads into the cycle. We have all these amazing historical buildings around the Nation and more and more of them are being sold off. I wish we could stop treating masonry like a cheap endeavor and instead ourselves into it.
I would say masonry is contaminated with apathy, 3 generations of men who forgot what it was like to build or feel the need for a community. From a rural community standpoint: communities who were once full of business owners, who could contribute financially, rather full of wage earners who funnel what used to be community wealth to centralized corporations and shareholders (Amazons and Walmarts). Gone are the days of the grocery store owners, the Bank owners, and etc. At one time wealth and the circulation of commerce stayed in a community. Today every thing commercial has been centralized, money wealth and influence leave the community. I've been thinking of late, perhaps the need for support groups, burial insurance, health policies, old peoples homes, orphanages and hospitals; which drove people to participate in civic organizations and religious support groups as a requirement was not such a bad thing. It invested people in their own fate and community. Today Wealth flows out of a community, and support demands are filled by a state and federal budget. Participation and cooperation isn't required any more to keep one's self insured. Thus the fall of the fraternal order and society proceeded with out notice. This to me was at the heart of the fraternal boom in the early part of the 20th century. Mutual Benefit.