The future is as far reaching as the past
goteam posed the question "what gives you hope?" in response to the recent election results. So I thought about it a bit, and here's what I came up with. Please feel free to add your thoughts--this is something that I'll probably be thinking about a lot in the coming months.
Hate and fear and change and love and hope are nothing new. They have been part of the fabric of humanity for a long time, and will continue to be part of that fabric for generations to come. Sometimes it seems like all there is is fear, fear of change, fear of those who are different, fear of the future--that ultimate unknown. But the excitement of change, the love of those who are different, and hope for the future also always lurk around the corner.
My biggest source of hope these days is the little spark of humanity that is currently kicking me in the ribs. My child, who will in all likelihood experience more of the future than I will, will only know about Bush's presidency from whatever she reads in history books. This event, that looms so large in the landscape of my present, will be nothing but an abstract idea to the next generation.
It is easy for every person, and every generation, to exaggerate the importance of the events of their own lives. My father once said that the true tragedy of the Vietnam war was that it robbed our country of its innocence. I think that those who lived through the Civil War would have a slightly different view of when our country lost its innocence. I think I lost mine, in the grander political sense, when the Iraq war was launched. Because innocence is a myth that gets reborn with every generation.
It is so easy to look at the past with a rosy glow, because it is either a past we didn't experience or a past we experienced as a younger, different person. But I think a lot of things in the past were pretty horrible, and frankly there is no point in history where I would rather live than in the here and now. Humanity has faltered many many times, but I think the world in general continues to be a better and brighter place. I expect my children and my children's children to look back on parts of this era with a bit of horror, just as I look back on the Japanese internment of WWII and the proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw interracial marriage with horror. But that's because, despite our set backs, despite how slow progress seems to be made, we do keep making progress. Humanity marches on, trying to better the world and ourselves one small step at a time.
Hate and fear and change and love and hope are nothing new. They have been part of the fabric of humanity for a long time, and will continue to be part of that fabric for generations to come. Sometimes it seems like all there is is fear, fear of change, fear of those who are different, fear of the future--that ultimate unknown. But the excitement of change, the love of those who are different, and hope for the future also always lurk around the corner.
My biggest source of hope these days is the little spark of humanity that is currently kicking me in the ribs. My child, who will in all likelihood experience more of the future than I will, will only know about Bush's presidency from whatever she reads in history books. This event, that looms so large in the landscape of my present, will be nothing but an abstract idea to the next generation.
It is easy for every person, and every generation, to exaggerate the importance of the events of their own lives. My father once said that the true tragedy of the Vietnam war was that it robbed our country of its innocence. I think that those who lived through the Civil War would have a slightly different view of when our country lost its innocence. I think I lost mine, in the grander political sense, when the Iraq war was launched. Because innocence is a myth that gets reborn with every generation.
It is so easy to look at the past with a rosy glow, because it is either a past we didn't experience or a past we experienced as a younger, different person. But I think a lot of things in the past were pretty horrible, and frankly there is no point in history where I would rather live than in the here and now. Humanity has faltered many many times, but I think the world in general continues to be a better and brighter place. I expect my children and my children's children to look back on parts of this era with a bit of horror, just as I look back on the Japanese internment of WWII and the proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw interracial marriage with horror. But that's because, despite our set backs, despite how slow progress seems to be made, we do keep making progress. Humanity marches on, trying to better the world and ourselves one small step at a time.