The Road Ahead

There are plenty of reviews of the year that was, online, in print, on TV, it is a yearly tradition for our media and entertainment outlets to look back on the highlights of the year, so this will not be another one of those. As much as I love history, I really am more fascinated with the precious present, and with trying to figure out what might occur in the future. It is the reason that I enjoy reading and learning about history as much as I do, because it gives me a perspective on where we are today and where we might be headed.

Where we are today is a mixed bag, but one thing is for certain, which is that there is more hope for the future than at any time that I can remember. 2008 may very well be remembered as the year when America got its groove back, by electing an intelligent and worldly leader as our next president, by finally waking up to the realities of what is happening to our planet, by starting to accept that our place in the new era of world history will be different from our place in the old era, and that our role will have to change to adapt to that.

Adapting to change through innovation is something that defines America, as does an optimism that often borders on cockiness, and these elements have been around since the first Europeans set out to colonize a foreign land an ocean away from their homelands, fighting overwhelming odds posed by nature, distance, and an indigenous population that wasn’t necessarily too fond of newcomers taking over and setting up shop. It was evident in our decision to take on the most powerful armed force of the era when we decided that we’d had enough of British rule. What the mighty Brits referred to as a bunch of farmers with pitchforks not only won the war and booted the Brits out of the lower portion of the continent (they would remain in Canada until the 19th century) but then proceeded to set up a democratic republic that the world had never seen and one which most doubted would last.

In the next century, we decided that it was our destiny to control the rest of the lower half of North America, or at least stretching down to the Rio Grande, and set about doing so with the same ability to adapt to change and boundless optimism that had allowed us to found the original 13 colonies and then to win our independence. In doing so we certainly stepped on a few toes to put it mildly, but I for one am not sorry that it happened, though I might wish the means had been somewhat different. I would not be living in the good old U.S. of A today if not for the westward expansion of the 19th century, nor would our nation be the world’s largest and most powerful economy, military, and cultural power, which with some exceptions, we have mostly used for the betterment of the world as a whole.

In the twentieth century we became a major player on the world stage, spurred first by Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the century, followed by Woodrow Wilson, our first sitting president to visit Europe in the aftermath of The Great War (WWI), and then by FDR and our emergence as a true global superpower at the end of the Second World War. Over the preceding fifty years we built a force to be reckoned with, and while we have had some rough patches recently due to eight years of rule by the worst president of our lifetimes, we seem to be back on the track to better times and better results, we seem to be getting our groove back.

I don’t expect that Obama will magically solve all of our nation’s ills, nor do I blame all of those same ills on the Bush administration. Our economic situation has been a few decades in the making and encompasses decisions made by presidents of both parties, not to mention a mindset of avarice on the part of our society that has produced unsustainable inequalities in the system.

There are no quick fixes to the economic recession, which is truly global in scope and figures to be longer lasting than previous downturns of our lifetime. But we can manage to come out of the recession with a leaner and less meaner system if we utilize the innovation, adaptability, and optimism that has always served us well. When gas prices shot up to over four dollars per gallon last summer, we simply adjusted our driving habits and used less. This shows adaptability, as does the decreased consumer spending that we have seen over the most recent holiday season.

We are capable of being innovative in a number of areas, most especially as it pertains to the natural environment. We finally have a president in office who gets it, who seems to understand that we must change our energy consumption habits and develop a new system of energy production if we are to save our planet from destruction, not to mention give us economic competitiveness and protect our national security in this new era of shifting powers and allegiances. Again, we will not solve serious environmental concerns overnight, but with dedication and passion and good old fashioned American know how and ingenuity, we can and I believe will become a world leader in what are termed green technologies and in creating a more sustainable and productive system of powering our world and allowing for beneficial growth to occur.

With regard to our foreign policy, we must adjust our thinking from one of being the sole superpower and world hegemon to a major power that can be a leader, but in a collaborative manner that takes into account the needs and wishes of our allies while standing up to our enemies and bad actors of the world stage. We must dictate less and cooperate more, no longer the lone wolf but more of the first among equals in this new era. Again, we elected the right guy for the job, a person who has real world experience with the world outside of our borders, having grown up partly in Hawaii and Indonesia, he can give the perspective of an outsider because he has been one, and we certainly need some of that perspective in our foreign affairs.

We are entering a new year on the calendar, but more than that we are about to enter into a new era of human and world history. No one knows exactly what the future will hold in store, and it will be years if not decades until history can even begin to accurately judge the end of the era that we have just passed through, and even longer until we can truly assess the era that we are just entering. What we do matters, who we elect to hold office matters, how we treat each other and the planet we all share matters, our opinions and level of knowledge and understanding and how we utilize them matters.

It is a great time to be alive, and while we face many challenges and obstacles to overcome, the opportunity to deal with those challenges and overcome the obstacles is something that perhaps, if we tackle life with that same innovative, adaptative, and optimistic spirit, we can look back decades from now and say that we were part of something that left the world a better place than when we found it, a place where our kids and grandkids can live and thrive, a place that we can all be proud to call home.