A New America?
The following quote from the conclusion to Kai Bird’s book on the most powerful man in America from 1940-1975 partially defines our present problem, though the book on John McCloy was published in 1992:
“The costs of building this military and intelligence apparatus have been staggering; the end of the Cold War has left America with an uncompetitive economy burdened with debt, high unemployment, low growth, and income levels more unevenly divided at any time since the beginning of the Cold War.”
Bird’s book, “The Chairman”, read along with “The Wise Men” by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas (published in1986), will begin to give one adequate insight into the present mess that is impacting upon every American. “The Wise Men” is a group biography of McCloy and five of his friends: men whose actions created the structure of events that produced the results described in the quote above.
Sixteen years on the problems are much greater and are greatly exacerbated by environmental problems that both limit our options and the time frame in which we can act.
We live in a world of instant information conveyed by a worldwide media web maintained by advertisement that is interested in only one thing: your attention, and will subvert facts on behalf of sensation to achieve it, thus the news will spend 15 seconds on the war between Russia and Georgia and 15 minutes on the sexual behaviour of John Edwards.
Such distraction has become the norm: “and what the net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” (Nicholas Carr, Atlantic, July/August 2008)
The problems we face are enormous. They require long range thinking, quiet and deep contemplation. They will not be solved by those who have their faces pressed to a screen or afraid to turn off their cell phones, and alas the possible solutions will not even be grasped by those who have been conditioned by our media to diffuse their concentration.
Since my return to the United States seven years ago, I have been struck by many things as twenty years absence has deeply deconditioned my habitual responses to register impressions that are invisible to others.
What has impressed me the most is the almost pathological inability of most Americans to think quietly about their situation. Peace and quiet seems to threaten and be quickly filled with noise. This kind of behaviour is inimical to deep thought and concentration.
