Rosalie Cushman: Predicting The Past - Reflections of 2011...
I couldn’t help but laugh at Dan Weisman’s latest posting about his “occupation” of the Crosby Estate. Then, of course, I cried. Several times this past year I’ve recalled a statement made by one of my Boston University professor’s claiming, “You will turn out to be much like your parents; more than you can even believe now”. I thought he was nuts! This was in the early 70’s, on the heels of Kent State, demonstrations against the Viet Nam War, post-MLK and Robert Kennedy assassinations and all that upheaval that signified some pretty dramatic shifts in American Society.
Or so we thought.
Being a political junkie, with occasional episodes of recovery at best, I’ve been following many events and discussions throughout the year, much of which has focused either on the economy and/or the Republican primary process, along with changes in the world at large. I have sustained shock and disbelief often, followed by lurching uncontrollably between disgust, shame, excitement, and boredom. At one point, I actually heard Howard Fineman of Huffington Post say we boomers are “greedy and selfish”, even owning the description like a grownup for himself, not proudly, mind you, just maturely. This was in the context of the early days of the Occupy Wall Street movement which, of course, has morphed into a new phase.
Fineman’s depiction and acknowledgement of ‘our boomer generation’ behavior, of course, is accurate in many ways, though not all. I liked his honesty but also chafed at the mirror he held up to some of what we have certainly done to ourselves as a society. I like it in part because of the exposure of the whole ‘victim-perpetrator- theme being played out in America today. He suggests it will only serve us when we own up to our own role in it; own up to our own participation in choosing one or the other to identify with. It is what grown-ups need to be about, after all; ownership and accountability. The 1% and the 99%, each, have much to learn from the other, not the least of which is to look the other squarely in the face while taking responsibility for their own participation. This naturally includes my own game-playing as well. No one is off the hook; no one exempt.
When I think back to the early stirrings of the Arab Spring, I am reminded of parallels within all societies that undergo upheaval and change. Sometimes that change is consequent to economic conditions. Sometimes that change is due to political repression. Sometimes it is due to rapid industrialization/modernization, and sometimes it is due to wild disparity between classes of people. In today’s globalization, there is something new operating that adds enormous benefit but incredible tension to the mix as well: technology. Yes, it’s been discussed re the power of Twitter, Facebook, rapid internet communications and cell/video phones that can expose events differently from how change was represented in the past.
I’ve heard NYT columnist Tom Friedman discuss his recent examination of where we are as a nation, the crossroads we find ourselves in, in his recent book, “That Used to Be Us”. Our dilemma is not hopeless, he says. However, reasonable solutions are time-sensitive and all the desire in the world to ignore or minimize the crossroads we huddle in right now while national and global events accelerate past us ensures failure, albeit at a snail’s pace. Yes, we can fail slowly, and may be doing just that, while others race by us.
Remarkably, I’ve met and known two emigrants; one Czech, who survived WWII and the Holocaust; the other a Chinese-Korean who survived the Korean War as a child. In each case, their fierce determination to adapt has been startling. It sounds like such an obvious conclusion to draw yet we’d be well advised to pay closer attention to not just why others have come to America but how and what they’ve done to change themselves as part of the process of adaptation. Often, their changes have been subtle but equally often, profound.
Yes, they survived. Yes, they learned strategies on overcoming starvation, poverty and displacement. But hidden in their very survival is their astonishing adaptation to new circumstances, a new set of events including people, language, cultures and economies. What’s more, each man can be an example as an individual to the group as a whole. For it is where we find America – indeed, the world – in currently. Context is everything. These two men know this even without articulating it. They know it in their heart and in their gut. Context requires innovation and new thought on many levels.
America has yet to fully understand our new context internally, let alone, globally, or at least many Americans have yet to do that. Friedman understands that all too well. Fineman and many others do too. The passing of Steve Jobs even, has cast a light on this very fact also, though more obliquely. At the end of the day/year we cannot ‘tweak’ our way out of this contextual paradigm shift by modifying old ideas just enough to avoid risk. The risk for us is in not taking greater risk itself. Not for the mere sake of it, but for the necessity of thinking differently because our context has changed.
Economist Paul Krugman suggested early on that the initial capital infusion was too small. He was so very right, as other economists have now corroborated. Elizabeth Warren, run out of Washington by Wall Street’s elite because she ‘risked’ exposing some of their practices, will likely return but from a different vantage point as an elected official, and legitimately so. Finally, what the 1% knows that the 99% hasn’t caught onto is that if the ‘light’ of video/phones, FB, Twitter etc. ever exposed their back room manipulations in any massive way like distorted pictures of street protests do, the jig would be up for them. I give you Enron. Believe me, there’s more Enron behavior operating in the shadows, some of it legal, though hardly ethical (and certainly not practical). We just cannot see it all; only some of the disastrous ‘results’.
But all of this discussion is not to blame anyone. Instead, it is to hold all of us accountable: the 1% and the 99%. I happen to like Capitalism. There are many fine and integrous companies in America. I also like government. (I never saw a tax cut put out a fire!!) What I don’t like is greed, bloat and excess on either side. None of those qualities will ever serve us. Blame will never serve us. Accountability will serve us though, and must. Any ‘position’ one takes always operates within a context and America’s context has changed. We all need to see that, truly see that, and mature individually and behave as a nation accordingly. If we don’t, we will shrivel and shrink from the promise that heretofore has propelled America forward.
