A Nation Unto Ourselves

For the past few days I’ve been reading about a dark time, and a nation that lived through a series of events which had convinced most of them that the thousand year history of their great island nation was at its end. They endured a continuous parade of horrible news, defeats, and national humiliations. They were each day subjected to deprivations of every kind, and each night were pounded mercilessly with bombs. Throughout this long nightmare of calamity, their leader had to stand before the House of Commons and listen to his policies being castigated by rival politicians, then defend them against the very same people who had placed their country in such grave peril in the first place. These debates would last for...days. At the end of each, the government would survive a no confidence vote and earn the right to oversee more defeats. Reading about it all 80 years later, it seems so very impossible. How could they have survived without tearing each other apart? It’s one thing to debate the price of bread, or how much unemployment compensation is right and just...but another thing entirely to grapple with your impending national annihilation.

So, this morning I took a few moments to glance through the headlines, since a summation of the nation’s news serves as a sort of snapshot of our times. Here’s what I find...

Sleazy lawyers, porn stars du jour, special prosecutors, ex-FBI directors on book tours, controversial coffee shop videos, two French speaking world leaders having a bromance, bombs falling on Syria, stories of urinating prostitutes, dossiers, alleged Russian collusion, sanctuary cities, tanning beds and goggles....

Meanwhile, unemployment is down, the stock market marches on, and most of us go on our merry way, secure in our private universe of family, friends and fortune. No bombs rain down on us. Most of us aren’t deprived of anything, and despite the daily humiliations which belch forth from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we get along with our lives. This is either a mark of progress, or a kind of tyranny. The fact that we can prosper in such a void of serious, responsible leadership is either a welcome indicator of the power of the individual to forge his or her own way even in the complexity of this 21st century world...or we have become so insular, so detached from each other, we have all become a nation unto ourselves. But if so, this detachment can only survive when the challenges we face remain petty and inconsequential. This tribalism will fall apart into pieces if ever bombs start to fall...on us.