I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the

Hear now the words of Norman Lear, the great storyteller of America’s living room, who said: “I guess because the shows were activist in their own way — the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know — people understand me very well. They also understand there’s a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.” In this reflection lies the wisdom of an artist who did not merely entertain, but awaken — one who saw television not as a distraction, but as a mirror, a classroom, and a battlefield for the conscience of a nation. Lear’s words carry the tone of one who knew that art and activism are not separate realms, but twin forces born of the same spirit — the desire to speak truth to power and to stir humanity toward greater understanding.

For in the time of Norman Lear, the airwaves became the new agora — the marketplace of ideas where millions gathered not in temples or courts, but before the flickering light of the television. Through his creations — All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, and others — he brought into the home the issues that politicians feared to speak aloud: racism, war, feminism, class struggle, and faith. These were not merely comedies, but modern parables clothed in laughter. When he speaks of “the marriage of my public activism and my career activism,” he reveals his art’s divine purpose — to bridge the world of imagination and the world of action, to ensure that the stories we tell shape the lives we live.

Yet in his wisdom, Lear also speaks of balance. He reminds us that his work, though bold in message, carried a “very strong bipartisan part.” This is not the voice of partisanship, but of principle — the ancient belief that truth must transcend tribe. Like the philosophers of old, Lear sought to awaken rather than divide. In All in the Family, Archie Bunker became both a figure of ridicule and reflection — a man embodying the prejudices of his age, yet painted with enough humanity that even those who saw themselves in him could laugh and learn. Thus, Lear achieved what few have done: he made the nation look at its own faults and smile, not in denial, but in recognition.

His message was as ancient as the dramatists of Greece. In the age of Euripides, the stage was also the place where society wrestled with its conscience. Through tragedy and comedy alike, people confronted the hypocrisies of power, the fragility of justice, the folly of pride. So too did Norman Lear, centuries later, use the art of storytelling to hold a mirror before America, reminding it that democracy depends not only on elections, but on empathy — on the capacity to see oneself in the struggles of others. His television was not escapism, but engagement — the democratic theater reborn in modern form.

To say his shows were “activist” is to recognize that they were born of moral courage. At a time when the nation was torn by Vietnam, by civil rights protests, by the awakening of women’s liberation, Lear dared to turn those conflicts into conversation. He believed that humor could break walls where argument could not, that laughter could open the heart more swiftly than anger. This, too, is activism — not through shouting in the streets, but through the gentle art of awakening.

And yet, he speaks humbly — “people understand me very well.” For Lear knew that his strength came not from preaching, but from listening. His art was shaped by the voices of ordinary Americans — their frustrations, their dreams, their contradictions. He saw the divine in the everyday, the politics in the personal. That is why his work endures: because it was born from compassion, not ideology. In every episode, he sought not to defeat, but to connect — to remind a divided nation that shared laughter is the first step toward shared truth.

Let this be the lesson, then: that activism, when rooted in empathy, becomes art; and art, when wielded with purpose, becomes activism. The wise will remember that the storyteller holds as much power as the statesman, for it is through story that nations learn who they are. Let each person, then, seek to wed their public ideals with their daily craft — to make of their life a union between conviction and creation.

For in the end, as Norman Lear taught, true progress is not the triumph of one side over another, but the awakening of both to their shared humanity. The laughter that bridges divides is more powerful than the anger that deepens them. And when we find that union — between heart and voice, between work and purpose — we too will be able to say, as he did, with quiet grace and gratitude: “We are understood, because we have sought to understand.”