The
2016 election has forced me to reflect on the many ideals that both our major
parties—and my own generation--have abandoned.
Since the end of the Republican and Democratic
conventions I have suffered a case of “blog-block” (not unlike writer’s block).
Oh, I’ve posted my share of Facebook comments, but
these have been consistently negative critiques of specific points or events. The depressing spectacle of this election has
stymied me. I feel acutely discouraged
by our country’s sad condition but I have struggled to formulate a
comprehensive account of those feelings.
Until now.
The low quality of the candidates, the uncivil and uncivilized
tenor of their campaigns, and the dysfunction of our electoral system have all
bothered me. But my discouragement was about
something deeper.
Two things, really.
For one thing, this electoral season has clearly
failed my personal expectations. As an
American, I expect the opportunity to vote for someone representing my civic
concerns and values. And as a Catholic,
I expect to support someone who supports the social vision I get from my
faith. The 2016 campaign is defying me
on both counts.
I admit, those expectations are perennial--and they
have been perennially frustrated in nearly every presidential election since I
reached voting age more than 40 years ago.
But the 2016 campaign has been even more discouraging than previous
campaigns. Not only is it failing my
personal expectations, it has also failed the promise of my generation.
In 1992 Bill Clinton became the first baby boomer elected
president. Since then, boomers have been
the dominant cohort in presidential elections: Clinton again in ‘96, George W.
Bush and Al Gore in 2000, Bush again in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008, Obama again Mitt
Romney in 2012, and now Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. By 2020, boomers will
have occupied the White House for 28 years.
Like me, they all grew up as part of the largest
generation in U.S. history--and one of the most idealistic. Anyone going to high school and college in
the 1960s lived through a ferment ranging from Rock and Roll and hippies to moon
landings, from civil rights to Vietnam, from feminism to ecology—all amid
assassinations and protests and a clash of ideals.
Amid such chaos, we invented the “generation gap” by committing
ourselves to fundamental change. We expected that when our turn came, we would
change the world. And we knew “the whole
world is watching.” And now our time HAS come, and the whole world IS watching.
What do they see?
Personally I always found a lot of my peers’ idealism
naïve and romantic, and I tended to think our real “revolution” was more
cultural (or even spiritual) than political. I knew the status quo’s hold on
our way of life was powerful, so I did not really expect America to abandon all
of its institutions and traditions. I
did not expect our future to break with our past. But I did expect my generation to reject the
nation’s worst traits (for example, its racism, its materialism, its intolerance
to non-conformity) while embracing and expanding its key ideals.
Instead, now I am reminded of philosopher Frantz Fanon
saying “Each generation must discover its
mission, fulfill it or betray it.” It feels like our generation DID discover
its distinct mission early on, but has not fulfilled it. Now, so many years
later, it seems to me that our generation has lost the capacity for idealism.
Far from fulfilling our mission to change the world,
we have betrayed our mission by failing to even sustain the ideals of our past. On issue after issue, our leadership has
discredited new initiatives as “too idealistic”--meaning impossible to
achieve--while allowing other nations to pass America by. We now risk leaving
our country less idealistic than we found it!
Ironically, this does not mean that idealism is dead.
In many fields, our allies in Europe and Asia and Canada and elsewhere have
been inspired by our pioneering efforts. As I watch other nations embrace
American innovations and build better futures on them, I ask myself over and
over, “Why can’t we?”
I am thinking of things that shape the way we live and
also our presence in the world. They
shape our economy our daily lives, our culture, and our international relations. I’m thinking of education, of transportation,
of health care, of labor relations, of our military, of inequality, of
employment and immigration and peace and poverty.
This post is the first in a series that surveys such
issues. In each case, I reflect on our
past embrace of idealistic change. I observe how we have fallen behind our allies
as we have quit on that ideal while they have taken our place and sustained such idealism. In each case I ask “Why
can’t we?”
Let me begin with transportation.
Just look at our past.
Except for Native Americans and some recent immigrants from Central and South
America, who arrived on foot, everyone else got here by sea or by air. The first European settlers called their
destination “the New World” precisely because crossing oceans was without precedent,
and required a vision and courage and a willingness to risk that presumed high
ideals. Some, like the Pilgrims, came
seeking their own kind of religious liberty.
Others, like the Puritans, arrived simply seeking a better life in a new
place. Ocean travel made that possible,
and led to the cluster of major ports along the eastern seaboard that we now
call Megalopolis.
200 years later, the Erie Canal opened this new world
to expansion away from the sea, and gave birth to an inland nation stretching
west as far as the plains and its great rivers.
40 years after that, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad
stretched that nation across 3000 miles from sea to sea.
And 50 years later, America succeeded where France had
failed, completing the Panama Canal that linked those two seas and made global
shipping possible on an unprecedented scale.
40 years after that, a Republican president inaugurated the construction
of the Interstate Highway System, enabling Americans to cross the country for
both personal and commercial reasons with unprecedented speed and ease.
The American love affair with the automobile soon
spread to other nations, who constructed their own super highway systems. The same was true for international jet
travel, dating from about 1960.
But at that point, American leadership in transportation
ended. As oil prices and pollution and
congested roads marked the beginning of the end of automobiles’ dominance,
nations in both Europe and Asia began to develop new technologies and build new
infrastructure. They constructed
thousands of miles of brand new rail lines to accommodate futuristic trains
that could cruise above 200 miles per hour.
The rail systems they built enabled travelers to reach distant
destinations in half the time of driving, while using less energy. Once again, train travel became the first
option for hundreds of millions of travelers in France, Germany, Spain, Belgium,
the Netherlands, England, Japan, China, Taiwan, etc.
But not in the United States. We still rely on a system of rails constructed
as much as 100 years ago, running trains at laughably low speeds compared to
either their past performance (when the rail lines were new) or to the speeds
typical among our Allies.
The failure to keep up with our Allies leaves
Americans chronically dependent on automobile travel even for the most
impractical of trips. Currently it is
impossible to get from Boston to New York in less than 4 hours of actual travel
time—no matter if by car, bus, train or plane.
If we had the high speed rail our allies already possess, the trip would
take 2 hours or even less. The same problem
applies to trips between all major American cities. Boston to DC is the same distance
as Paris to Marseille; both trips take 7 ½ hours by car. In France the trip by
train is 3 hours. We can’t we?
Moreover, our outmoded dependence on cars for intra-city
and inter-city travel prevents us from reducing our carbon emissions and leaves
us stuck in place as the worlds #1 contributor to climate change, which Pope
Francis declares to be the world’s #1 challenge. Our economy, our health, our
daily lives, our leisure, and even our connection to each other are all damaged
by our failure to retain our leadership in transportation.
When I visit other countries and travel their rails, I
am amazed at the vision and idealism they displayed by investing in such
technological marvels in order to make them practical everyday realities. They made their vision real. I feel ashamed
that my country is no longer capable of such vision or such idealism. So when I return home and find myself riding
the antiquated systems we still cling to, I cannot help but wish that we could
learn from and imitate our allies and once again learn how to make visions real. And I cannot help but wonder “Why can’t we?”
NEXT time: Education
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2016
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