“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
— John Adams, 1776
He didn’t say it to sound noble — he said it to explain the brutal necessity of his time. The foundation of a healthy society isn’t comfort — it’s sacrifice. Struggle. Purpose. The point wasn’t to win freedom for its own sake, but so future generations could do more with it. Think bigger. Create. Build real culture.
Fast forward 250 years.
What have we done with that freedom? Mostly sold it. Commodified it. Lost the plot entirely.
The struggle isn’t honored anymore. History is ignored or revised into patriotic cartoons. American culture today is dominated by instant gratification and shallow metrics. We praise disruption but ignore depth. We export TikToks and tech layoffs while forgetting poetry, philosophy, and the meaning behind the freedoms we pretend to celebrate.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Europeans — despite their own messes — often live closer to the dream Adams envisioned. Culture layered over generations. Pain, resistance, art, memory. They wear history like armor. We pretend it never happened.
When someone in America calls this out, the reflexive response is always the same:
“If you don’t like it, go live somewhere else.”
As if mobility is a right. As if escape from systemic dysfunction, war, or authoritarianism is as simple as a plane ticket. It’s not. Ask the millions trapped by bureaucracy, borders, or violence.
That kind of retort is the mark of someone who’s never had to run — and never had to fight for anything real.
Into that void steps Heilung, and their performance of Krigsgaldr — not a song, but a ritual. A weaponized reminder of humanity’s oldest wound:
“What am I supposed to do
If I want to talk about peace and understanding
But you only understand the language of the sword?”
This is the world we live in. Where diplomacy dies under drone strikes, and “freedom” is invoked to justify surveillance, censorship, and war. Krigsgaldr isn’t political — it’s elemental. It strips away illusion and makes you feel the weight of everything we’ve refused to fix.
And America? It has a culture crisis.
We don’t create — we appropriate.
- Bluegrass? Born of Appalachian and African roots.
- The banjo? West African.
- The blues? Ripped from Black America’s grief, then diluted and resold by white labels to mass audiences.
That’s not innovation — it’s erasure.
Culture requires depth. Pain. Struggle. Continuity.
You can’t buy it. You can’t fake it. You sure as hell can’t steal it and call it yours.
John Adams wasn’t asking for blind patriotism. He was laying down a warning:
Freedom isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting point.
If America wants to recover anything of what Adams hoped for, it needs to start being honest —
About its history. About its violence. About the way it pretends culture is a brand instead of a soul.
And if that makes some people uncomfortable?
Good.
Discomfort is how growth starts.
🔗 If you’re still reading, here’s the link to Heilung - Krigsgaldr (Live).
Watch it. Feel it. Then ask yourself if this is the future we’re still fighting for — or the past we’ve already abandoned.