The Big Picture
In my first week of college, I had the privilege of listening to Doctor Richard Haas, an American diplomat who's worked in government and is now president of the Council for Foreign Relations. He is determined to open understanding about foreign relations to Americans, so the world can be better understood in this period of turmoil. His main point during his opening speech was that for the last several decades we have been in a relative time of peace. Since World War II the world has been more peaceful than it had been before that. And in the last decade that peace has been disturbed.
It also happens that in the last decade the politicians of our time have shifted the popular worldview. Not from others to ourselves, in some sense we have always been worried about ourselves just in a more peaceful way, but in a timeline sense.
The world can be thought of in two ways. One is that we are just one part of a longstanding system that should continue on for generations to come, and the other is that we are the important ones and the people below us should have to do just as much work as we did. In a sense, one way cares about the longevity of all people who will live in the future and the other cares about the greatness of those who live now.
The thought of the time has shifted from the longevity of all people, with alliances that have been longstanding and policies that have been enacted to help the future of this earth, to the view that what is current is what matters. People want this country to be great and to be great, the belief is, we must sacrifice some of the future to allow for our superiority.
But we are not all the people who will live on Earth. We are not all the people who have lived on Earth. And the stories of the past can tell us that what we're doing now is wrong because those stories aren't being told. Hundreds of thousands of children don't learn about that happened "long ago" because it might be distressing. But things we don't talk about didn't happen long ago. Slavery hasn't been illegal for 200 years, the Holocaust happened less than a century ago, and African Americans didn't get equal rights until the sixties and arguably don't have them today. These things that happened so long ago happened in the lifetimes of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Not even three generations have passed since then, yet we are being taught it as if it was ancient history.
The impacts of these events are still being felt today, yet some people have the audacity to say they don't matter. That we should look to the future. But those same people say that looking at the environmental impacts that we have is too far into the future.
Those people don't see the big picture. The picture that needs to be taught so that our grandchildren won't be left with an uninhabitable Earth. So those generations after us can keep going, and the Earth can prosper and humanity can be great, not just us.
It also happens that in the last decade the politicians of our time have shifted the popular worldview. Not from others to ourselves, in some sense we have always been worried about ourselves just in a more peaceful way, but in a timeline sense.
The world can be thought of in two ways. One is that we are just one part of a longstanding system that should continue on for generations to come, and the other is that we are the important ones and the people below us should have to do just as much work as we did. In a sense, one way cares about the longevity of all people who will live in the future and the other cares about the greatness of those who live now.
The thought of the time has shifted from the longevity of all people, with alliances that have been longstanding and policies that have been enacted to help the future of this earth, to the view that what is current is what matters. People want this country to be great and to be great, the belief is, we must sacrifice some of the future to allow for our superiority.
But we are not all the people who will live on Earth. We are not all the people who have lived on Earth. And the stories of the past can tell us that what we're doing now is wrong because those stories aren't being told. Hundreds of thousands of children don't learn about that happened "long ago" because it might be distressing. But things we don't talk about didn't happen long ago. Slavery hasn't been illegal for 200 years, the Holocaust happened less than a century ago, and African Americans didn't get equal rights until the sixties and arguably don't have them today. These things that happened so long ago happened in the lifetimes of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Not even three generations have passed since then, yet we are being taught it as if it was ancient history.
The impacts of these events are still being felt today, yet some people have the audacity to say they don't matter. That we should look to the future. But those same people say that looking at the environmental impacts that we have is too far into the future.
Those people don't see the big picture. The picture that needs to be taught so that our grandchildren won't be left with an uninhabitable Earth. So those generations after us can keep going, and the Earth can prosper and humanity can be great, not just us.
But That's What I Think, how about you?
Great points! You are absolutely right - we do seem to be losing the big picture, don't we? But perhaps, we see it that way because the present is not history yet? The day-to-day "greatness", has always seemed - in the moment - more important than the long-term, true greatness. But maybe that is because it is sometimes impossible for us to think beyond ourselves, beyond our bread and butter issues, beyond what's immediately gratifying? Stubbornly trying to hang on to our tribal advantages is easier than trying to rectify injustices to other tribes.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is the matter of simple survival, of trying to live a semi-decent life. That instinct sometimes takes precedence over loftier goals. Climate change is one such matter. How can I think of a warming planet and melting glaciers when my choice is between a gas car that costs $15,000 and will help me get to my minimum wage job, and a Tesla that costs $65,000 (or more!)?
But - as history has shown - its long arc always seems to bend towards greatness. Incremental greatness though. Grudging, incremental greatness.
So as you consider a career in diplomacy, this is something to remember when you make policy. Good policy must merge noble goals with more down to earth needs and urges.
I have to say though - the fact that you, in your very first week at college, are thinking about such issues, tells me that our future might be brighter than we might have suspected. Kudos!