This nation has a huge problem, and it may not be what comes immediately to mind like Wall Street bailouts, bankruptcies, housing crash, or climate change and unemployment. I sincerely believe it is a problem that is essentially universal, although rampant in America, and it is the Crime of Short-Term Thinking. We are, collectively, like three year olds who want every glittery thing we see NOW! We are victims of massive cultural and media-induced ADD. We have, collectively, lost our ability to concentrate, to explore issues with depth, to seek to understand the long-term effects of the decisions we make, and in fact, many times the decisions are made FOR us without our knowledge or permission by people whose motives are unknown and/or misunderstood. When truths surface, we have tantrums, overreact, cut off our noses in defiance, etc, (Teabagger, anyone?) My fear is that we will take too long to grow up. Biologically, we have a built-in excuse for this behavior, after all, we ARE predators, although that was an evolution in itself. Initially we were gatherers and scavengers and then we developed weapons and went from prey animals to animals who could defend themselves, to predators. When we discovered what 'fire' could do for us, things ramped up big time. The next step was, of course, to alter our environment and enhance our ability to survive, thrive, and evolve. This gave us time to think, to invent, to create societal rituals, ethics, and cultures. Then we got too big for our britches and thought we could control everything. And we have been banging our heads against that wall for at least 20,000 years. THIS IS WHERE I LOSE HEART. Isn't it time for us to make that next big transition? There are many individual examples of this sort of evolutionary growth, but if the "hundredth monkey" theory is valid, we are not the smartest monkey on the planet. Simply by being impatient for results we almost 'guarantee' failure and disappointment. Now things are truly catching up with us. If the growth in the economies of third-world countries doesn't bury us under piles of our own egos, the planetary illness surely will. And the worst news is we created this crisis pretty much by ourselves. Not JUST America, but us mainly, simply by creating the world's largest military power. We have completely forsaken the high moral ground that was intended by our founding documents in the name of access to the worlds' resources. Nearly every country who we get oil from is a tyranny, or an aristocracy, and we support them uncritically while we spout platitudes on civil rights, human rights, the evils of genocide, and the rape of the planet.
I don't know how we proceed exactly. Maybe we need to recognize. Truly RECOGNIZE.
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