Not Only a Growing set of Disasters
A thousand bright eagles are rising as well.
Popular in the pundit’s playbook is a listing of the interdependence of current crises. The rise of totalitarianism, climate change, pandemics, war and income inequality are all seen as contributing to a tsunami of suffering and chaos.
As we pile on more and more a load, no one wants to pull the cart, or even believe the cart can be pulled. Problems do not get solved, for people feel that change is too hard, or involves too high a cost, or might “blowup” a system that seems to be holding together for the time being. And still others practice denial.
Furthermore, as we focus on negative feedback loops and the interactions of perils and human costs, we fail to see the many feedback loops that are creating virtuous circles.
Many have not turned their back on current crises. Reform forces are coordinated and empowered across the very lines of communication that others view as conduits of chaos and authoritarianism.
Science and technology birth almost daily a thousand new ideas to combat disorganization and deliver new capabilities.
There is a rising tide of young men and women who see the world differently than my generation. We were “missionaries” to distant lands. They, our children, are collaborators, coworkers and doers across even defended boundaries.
I have always liked Vachel Lindsay’s lines about the implacable forces of progress. John Peter Altgeld was reviled in his time by many. They saw at best his efforts for reform as quixotic. A man out of step with his time. A visionary. Lindsay wrote:
Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
“We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
….
The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
…
That should have remembered forever . . . remember no more.
Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call,
The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,
A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,
The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began
The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.