Something Big

Our country needs a task. Something  big, something that we can all get behind. This is the sort of thing that I mean. This too.

At present, we're fractured and afraid. We blame others for our all-to-real problems, and we suspect that we've gone into decline.

Our children are given no goal other than narrow self-interest. They need something more than that. They must come to see themselves as integral parts of this great nation, and that nation must undertake some great task of tasks that will capture the imagination of its young people.

Want our children to excel in school? Want them to welcome the rigor of mathematics and the sciences? Give them a reason! A real reason, a reason that fires the heart. Don't insinuate that the only reason is wealth. That's a individual motive, a purely selfish motive. We need goals that extend past the boundaries of the self. We need goals that are at least national if not universal in scope.

What are we to tell our children? What goal do we given them? The details are of little importance. Tell that in 10 years we will have permanent colonies on Mars. Tell them that in 10 years we will have weaned ourselves off fossil fuels. But no matter what you tell them, tell them something big.

The only way for this to happen is for a leader to emerge who relentlessly pushes for something big. National purpose does not emerge bottom-up. From the bottom we only get a cacophony of voices, each of which advocates for its narrow self-interest alone. From the top, we have the potential for a single vision that can focus the energies of an entire people.

This is my hope, indeed my only hope. I hope that such a leader will emerge. If one does not, decline is I think inevitable.


(Cross-posted at A Teacher, A Text and a Culture.)