Can This Nation Be Saved?
When did it all start to go wrong?
Please don't say, "Bad things happen" or "There will always be evil in the world" or "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". This is not the time to cower behind convenient cliches in a transparent attempt to invoke God's judgment or point fingers or promote and pursue a political agenda that either curbs or secures Americans' ability to purchase firearms.
But, if history is any template, that is exactly what will happen in the Land of the (get it for) Free and Home of the Blameless. And another golden opportunity, paid for with the innocent blood of children, will be missed.
I want to believe the incomprehensible murder of 26 people (20 of them children between the ages of 5-7) will be our national tipping point. I want to hear our elected leaders, both Democrat and Republican, speak (with uncharacteristic honesty and sustained focus) of the cancerous trio that continues to afflict the American soul: divorce, substance abuse and mental illness. I want to see a decline in the glorification of violence viewed in our private homes and public theaters.
But I won't - none of us will.
Instead, all of us - politicians, academia, businessmen and women, mother and fathers, even the politically-charged clergy will debate the pros and cons of gun control. Ultimately, extremists on both sides of the issue will hijack the conversation, heels will dig in and the root causes of The Great Decay will remain unspoken, unaddressed. The shooting of children at an elementary school in an idyllic-sounding place like Newtown, Connecticut will become a statistic, a ranking on a list, part of last week's news cycle - just one more link in an unbroken chain of violence we say we don't understand - but one the American culture is complicit in nonetheless.
I don't believe it's God or the Devil at work across the landscape. That answer is too expedient, and one that conveniently masks personal responsibility. No, we are the architects of our undoing. At some point in the locomotion of this once-great nation, our moral train jumped the tracks.
I don't know when that moment - or series of moments - occurred. Maybe the slow slide began as far back as 1776. Maybe the Founding Fathers were wrong. Yes, we possess inalienable human rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). But maybe humanity's nature is to make the abuse of those same rights the norm rather than the exception. 236 years later, it would seem so.
I don't have answers, only discouragement. The American Experiment seems to be charting the same course as a promising republic once called Rome. A hopeful start, empiric bloating, an eventual decay, ultimately a rotting corpse. If history is any template . . .
We are at a national tipping point. Which way will we lean?
Please don't say, "Bad things happen" or "There will always be evil in the world" or "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". This is not the time to cower behind convenient cliches in a transparent attempt to invoke God's judgment or point fingers or promote and pursue a political agenda that either curbs or secures Americans' ability to purchase firearms.
But, if history is any template, that is exactly what will happen in the Land of the (get it for) Free and Home of the Blameless. And another golden opportunity, paid for with the innocent blood of children, will be missed.
I want to believe the incomprehensible murder of 26 people (20 of them children between the ages of 5-7) will be our national tipping point. I want to hear our elected leaders, both Democrat and Republican, speak (with uncharacteristic honesty and sustained focus) of the cancerous trio that continues to afflict the American soul: divorce, substance abuse and mental illness. I want to see a decline in the glorification of violence viewed in our private homes and public theaters.
But I won't - none of us will.
Instead, all of us - politicians, academia, businessmen and women, mother and fathers, even the politically-charged clergy will debate the pros and cons of gun control. Ultimately, extremists on both sides of the issue will hijack the conversation, heels will dig in and the root causes of The Great Decay will remain unspoken, unaddressed. The shooting of children at an elementary school in an idyllic-sounding place like Newtown, Connecticut will become a statistic, a ranking on a list, part of last week's news cycle - just one more link in an unbroken chain of violence we say we don't understand - but one the American culture is complicit in nonetheless.
I don't believe it's God or the Devil at work across the landscape. That answer is too expedient, and one that conveniently masks personal responsibility. No, we are the architects of our undoing. At some point in the locomotion of this once-great nation, our moral train jumped the tracks.
I don't know when that moment - or series of moments - occurred. Maybe the slow slide began as far back as 1776. Maybe the Founding Fathers were wrong. Yes, we possess inalienable human rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). But maybe humanity's nature is to make the abuse of those same rights the norm rather than the exception. 236 years later, it would seem so.
I don't have answers, only discouragement. The American Experiment seems to be charting the same course as a promising republic once called Rome. A hopeful start, empiric bloating, an eventual decay, ultimately a rotting corpse. If history is any template . . .
We are at a national tipping point. Which way will we lean?
Eric, again, well-done. Please, if you have not already done so, read Ishamael and/or The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. I think his concepts about humanity's perception of itself and our relationship to the earth are important, not only for your blog, but for the survival of our entire human community. Can modern society embrace the truth and comprehend the dire depth of our blind and seemingly rapacious disconnect with the earth?
ReplyDeleteJoel
Joel - thanks for the book suggestions - I will definitely check them out, always on the lookout for an insightful read. Frankly, I'm worried that the disconnect you are referring to may be a chasm too wide for humanity to bridge.
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