Currently we are facing a crisis, economically, of preportions never seen before in the US. the final outcome of the financial meltdown is yet to be seen, but anyone with a brain is aware we are facing a serious recession, and probably a depression. In addition we are facing an endless , expensive war in the middle east, New Orleans is still in ruins, for the most part, and we are now facing all kinds of serious problems both domestically and internationally. I believe that the root of this problem is in the american notion of individuality above all, and that ruthless self reliance is the highest goal one can achieve in our society, coupled with a massive shift in the dynamics of resource allocation, available land, and the ability of Americans in the past to pick up and move on whenever it suits them.
America needs a massive fundamental shift in attitude and culture and values. It needs to start with a new idea that we are all interconnected and our actions have serious consequences for our neighbors, employees, family's and countrymen. its time to bury the notion of individualism and rugged self reliance as the cornerstone of American life.
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for the first 200+ years of our existence, if something didn't suit an individual, he or she was free to pick up move west and start over. there was little or no premium placed on building a society that recognized the needs of all, but rather a society built on the notion that the highest good was the fulfillment of the desires of the individual. basically, that worked, for a lot of people ( certainly not all that is for sure) for a long time. but as resources, particularly cheap or free land, dried up, and as we became a more technological society we became, in our roots far more dependent on each other than in earlier times. however at the same time that this was occurring, Americans became more and more transient, moving from town to town city to city, state to state, in pursuit of careers, and work. The outcome of this has been to destroy the fabric of local communities, to the point now where the average American living in suburbia barley knows 10 of his neighbors, let alone the mayor, aldermen, drug store owner, shopkeepers etc. our society has evolved into a non society, a place where everyone is an anonymous individual, and where no one really cares about anyone but themselves, due to the fact that everyone is so transient that they realize they are not really invested in the long term prospects of any community they live in. this phenomenon extends from our towns and communities right up to and including the country as a whole: it explains the massive splits politically in America ,and the complete inability of people on the right and on the left to enter into any meaningful dialogue about how to work thru the country's problems in a unified way. At this point a dialogue is impossible, because the basic premise of American life is we are all in it for ourselves, and if you are not self sufficient then you have committed some kind of deep original sin. witness the demonization of homeless people for their problems, the demonization of leftists, progressives, and socialists for suggesting any kind of communal solution to any problem. It also explains the lack of ideas coming from politicians, who , indoctrinated into this system, cannot offer any of the real solutions that need to occur to fix any of the problems we face, as a society( note that no one talks to Americans about what we have to do AS A society to fix the problems we have AS a society, the answers are always nebulous, and never tell the American people that we are all going to have to make sacrifices to put things right again)
it is my belief that until we have a serious national discussion about this, and about how to create a society that once again thinks not only of self, but of societal good, we have NO chance to fundamentally fix any of our serious long term problems, or to change the course of our deterioration into economic ruin, and world ostracism for the crimes our country has committed against the world and, more sadly, against ourselves.