(How) We Gave Up on the Beautiful and Timeless Idea of a Better World

(The Bad Guys are Winning Because) We Gave Up on The Great Projects of Civilization and Progress

Have you noticed how we never seem to reflect on, discuss, even have, beautiful and great ideas anymore? Like, say, giving every human being on planet earth an education, retirement, income, savings? Like, say, nourishing every life on the planet — human, animal, or plant? How would we even do those things? Do you ever wonder?

Wait — aren’t those the very frontiers of the things we casually call “progress” and “civilization? So why is it, again, that we never discuss them, as societies — in the op-ed pages, on Twitter and Facebook, on the news? How come we’re too busy on war hysteria and the latest daily scandal? There’s something very wrong with all that.

The bad guys are winning across the globe because we gave up on the great, timeless, and most beautiful projects of civilization and progress. Yes, really. The result is that we’re trapped in a kind of pointless, self-destructive cycle. They frighten and scare us, with yet another provocation. We react. See what happens? We’re always the ones on the defensive. We’re always on the back foot. Then, maybe, we attack each other. Nobody has the courage, grace, wisdom or truth anymore left, really, to say something as outrageously, shockingly beautiful as: “We should have a world where every single life can prosper, even an insect or a meadow of flowers or a tiny baby tree.” What the? LOL — everyone would mock us and call us soft and stupid and naive. We’d be laughed at by a neo-fascist right…but also by a decadent left more obsessed by what to call what’s in whose pants than whether the planet’s burning down. See the problem?

Take the example of America’s latest war hysteria. Trump threatens Iran, Americans flip out. Rinse, repeat — the cycle’s gone on, with some imaginary enemy or other, for decades now. Meanwhile, leftists argue about…comic book superheroes. And you know what never happened in between? Americans never learned to care about those great projects of civilization and progress, like an education for every child on planet earth. Go ahead, ask the average American — they’ll probably chuckle and call you crazy. But…