The current rampant complacency to occurrences, which would have stirred outrage a few decades ago, has its global genesis in the many events and experiences we’ve been subjected to in the last 20-30 years. The collective glaze over everyone’s eyes, the compunction to respond to dramatic stimuli, is a direct result of the constant bombardment our collective psyches have endured from a myriad of sources. It is in essence PTSD.
It started with 9/11. Yes, there was an essentially unsuccessful attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. But the scale of the success of 9/11 was an immense shock to the American and global psyche. Not since the War of 1812 had the United States suffered such massive damage on our soil at the hands of a foreign aggressor. The ensuing War on Terrorism, and no real terror attacks here of any scale since, helped to restoke Americans belief that were, once again, the world’s dominant military power. The defeat of Al Qaeda, the death of Bin Ladin, the defeat of ISIS, among other successes, reinforced this confidence. Yet, deep psychological scars remain and the fear of a potential, very personal experience with terrorism has us wishing we had eyes in the back of our heads.
Then COVID struck the world. A different type of attack, many attribute COVID to a planned release of the virus by China to strike a crippling blow to President Trump’s chances for reelection. Trump had stood up to China like no other president and had the American economy roaring presenting many threats to China’s global ambitions and accension to dominance.
COVID brought over seven million deaths, cost hundreds of billions in economic impact and again left deep scars in our psyche. President Trump responded well by bringing government and industry to bear dramatically in an attempt to reduce the potential COVID had to wreck greater havoc. He appeared on television every day explaining his actions, in concert with other world leaders, in an attempt give us confidence that all that could be done was being done. Thankfully, American’s greatest medical minds successfully employed the resources supplied by government and industry to bring to bear knowledge and technology to significantly shorten COVID’s reign of terror on the world.
During, and after, these shocking global events were traumatizing America and the world, innumerable less news-worthy events and “attacks” were taking their collective toll on our psyche. The good and the bad of the internet were expanding their effect exponentially in our daily lives. Social media, in its attempt to positively affect our lives, has created an infinite number of vexing societal problems. Most critical among them is the proliferation of “news” reports of (true and untrue) violence, scandal, corruption, war, among many other negative events with a wide blast radius in our psyches while bombarding us hundreds of times a day. Combine this with the knowledge that our children are like lost lambs as prey for the massive number of hungry wolves, in the form of sexual predators, that await them around every turn on the web.
Now add to this boiling cauldron the endless political reports and vitriol constantly spuing from our screens at all levels from the very local to the national and global. It stokes the fires of anger and hatred leading to senseless acts of violence through the bloody hands of the most angry and depraved. Recently, political leaders have contributed to this foul mood with foul language. Where has decorum gone?
The evidence of these seismic pressures are spuing out of societal fissures virtually everywhere you look. Road rage, once rarely heard of, occurs many times a day, often with a violent end. Political rallies and college speaking engagements are ended by a sniper’s bullet. The very fabric of American society, the constitutional tenets of which we hold dear, the beacon of the world for freedom, as it should be, are at risk of collapse. Too many members of society are allowing these pressures to alter their thinking and causing them to act illogically, even criminally.
Even our personal relationships are impacted as friendships fracture over political differences. Where, once, those friendships were a safe place to openly speak, to be heard and to listen. Now, the tremendous pressures of modern life have even prevented us from exercising “free speech” in what once was a safe haven among friends.
America must wake up and recognize the dangers of this new reality. We must wipe the glaze from over our eyes and lean back to hold dear the things that truly matter. First among them the principles upon which this nation was built. Our founding fathers were essentially Europeans in their origin. The core tenets of this nation came from generational adherence to Judeo-Christian principals and the fervent belief that man should be the determiner of his own destiny. Not a monarch or a pope or some other ruler that holds power through force. Love thy neighbor, do not kill, do not steal, do not covet, do not lie and so on. That leaders should be chosen by the people. And, when they fail us, they are replaced by us. These are the same principles that can be found in the core of other societies/religions. Unfortunately, as our society has moved away from faith participation, we are no longer regularly reminded of these notions about conduct. It is precisely when things seem the most bleak, as the cauldron boils over, that we must be reminded that this nation was founded on the principle of individual freedom, with guardrails. That violence is not the answer to every seemingly intractable problem you face or situation you don’t like.
No system is perfect. The fact that so many from around the world wish to come here to work and live suggests ours is highly desirable. That 250 years of incredible success should tell you the founding fathers design was genius. So we should not tinker with it too much. The pursuit of happiness are very special words. Some tweaks, like love who you wish to love and marry, has brought happiness to some whose pursuit was not as successful as for others.
So let’s treat our collective PTSD with a medicinal course of love, kindness to others, truth and compassion. Over these 250 years we’ve had many critical challenges, wars, economic depression, pandemics, among others like slavery. We have always come through them with solutions that essentially made us stronger. There are many things we can do better and we should constantly pursue those critical improvements. Most importantly, we should chose our leaders wisely.
The Willow 