So I wrote something for my writing class. It’s kinda about the election. I honestly wrote it before the results came out, so I had to change it a little to fit. I think it’s good though. Thought I’d post it here..
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama declared the ‘end of history’. Not the end of the world, nor the end of writing, but the end of the progression of history. For time immemorial, the human race has lived short, brutish lives desperately striving to be free of the pains of the world. In that quest, we’ve invented fire, houses, trains, television, and the internet. We’ve fought as sworn enemies, worked together as brothers and sisters, lived apart in solitary kingdoms and together in vast, sprawling empires. We’ve built pyramids, went to the moon, and created systems to allow every common man a say in the direction of their country. All we’ve done works towards an end; we as humans do what we do for a reason, even when we’re not consciously sure exactly what that is.
Fukuyama’s idea of the ‘end of history’, is the idea of finally reaching that endpoint. As Aristotle keenly noted long ago, all human behavior can be summed up ultimately as the pursuit of happiness. This is also the ‘end’ that Fukuyama speaks of; a world that may not be perfect, but is as close to it as possible. A world where everyone can live together harmoniously, and yet with our own individual differences accounted for and respected. It’s hard to know when that time will ever come, if it even will. But hope demands we assume it will, because the only other option is a dead end for progress. And sometimes it seems we’re closer to the ‘end of history’ than ever. Democracy grant freedoms to people the world over that would have been unimaginable three thousand years ago. Capitalism, while rife with abuses and corruption, also creates economies that provide greater amounts of wealth to greater numbers of people than ever before in history, while also creating world-changing inventions such as cars and computers. It’s so successful at this that even Karl Marx, the grandfather of communism who so hated the abuses of capitalism, still couldn’t help but admire it’s ability to innovate better than any other system.
The direction of this country, and the world as a whole, is a more fascinating and terrifying question right now than at any other time in recent decades. We find ourselves in a time where nothing feels certain. Faith in the government, to both respect the people’s privacy and to follow through on the our wishes is at an all time low. The media seems to plant itself in the middle of this purely in a seat of self-interest. It is ratings, not people, that rule the day. People revolt against these corruptions in the system by following those who promise a way out, even when the people themselves don’t have faith in those leaders. The state of politics is almost unbelievable in the view of someone who grew up in the relatively utopian 90s; not since World War II has the country been so severely split along lines of belief. Only today it’s not about communists and Japanese, but about Muslims and Mexicans. But this conflict still plays out in similar ways; calls to stand on party lines have sounded and the people have responded with their allegiance to those who seem to be in charge. Often this comes at the sacrifice of morals; we side with people we dislike only because we dislike every other option before us even more. It’s overwhelming to think that both presidential candidates in the last election had record low approval ratings, and yet no one in this nation of 318 million could think of a way out. Sometimes it feels like end the of hope.
But history comes in stages. In waves. By the generation. And each generation takes on the world equipped with it’s own unique perspective and experiences. The generation that scrounged every penny and saved every drop of water to help the war effort in World War II, often called the ‘Greatest Generation’, gave birth to the Baby Boomer generation. This next generation moved far away from their parents conservatism and threw many perceived shackles to the ground. The Baby Boomers started the sexual revolution, pushed for complete desegregation of the races in society, gave single mothers chances they never dreamed of in the past, and protested against war with a ferocity never before seen. The next generation, often called Generation X, is just coming into the world in an influential way. Inheriting the anti-government sentiments of their parents but with the hope of something greater, they demand a world that’s better than good enough. Motivated by ideals of a better world and armed with the internet, they have the tools to accomplish that and cannot be dissuaded by propaganda as easily as in the past. This is something that’s often overlooked, but until just a few years ago governments and news media could control what people knew. For a long time, a majority of the U.S. didn’t even realize the extent of police brutality against minorities. With the advent of social media, the truth finds a way.
So maybe the world isn’t ending, and it isn’t falling apart. Maybe the lies of yesteryear are just decaying faster than we can keep up. Maybe we’re just being hit with the truth so hard and fast that we don’t know how to handle it. Our eyes are finally opening up completely; violence in America is at an all time low but awareness of the injustices behind them are at an all time high. We’re tempted to look to the past, nostalgically, at a time when things were simple and predictable. We want someone strong to come along and lift us up out of our troubles, to make everything right again. But the seductive simplicity of our childhoods don’t guarantee any solutions for tomorrow. No one person can decide the fate of a nation, and no one person has all the answers. Things will get difficult. Change hurts. Maybe that is all this is, growing pains for a new stage of humanity.
Our generation is witness to many unimaginable innovations, from social media that instantly connects the entire globe, to cars that can drive themselves and plans to build a colony on Mars by futurists such as Elon Musk of Tesla. Perhaps one of the most astounding things about all of this is that none of it existed when we were born. Technology is progressing so quickly that when we die, it will be in a vastly different world than the one we live in today. Whatever distance there is between the baby boomers and generation X, there will be an even greater one between Generation X and their kids. This rapid change shouldn’t make us afraid, though. On the other hand, it should give us hope. Sometimes the best solutions are unforeseeable.
Take New York City. In 1798 Thomas Malthus, a well respected economist, predicted the end of New York. But it wasn’t because of strife or poverty or natural disasters. It was, literally, being slowly buried in horse shit. Because at a time when horses were the main mode of transportation, no amount of cleaning crews could keep up with the task of cleaning up after them. Waste filled the streets and threatened to bury the city. His predictions created an outright panic; that the end of New York could come so soon, and for such a ridiculous reason terrified everyone. Humanity, it seemed, could only conquer the world for so long. Soon that would all come crashing down. To everyone’s surprise this changed, though, with the invention of the automobile. Suddenly, Malthus’s fears evaporated overnight. A solution no one ever imagined came out of nowhere and saved the day. Human ingenuity.
I take this digression to make a point. Oftentimes hope really is more powerful than fear. Not just in some abstract dreamy sort of way, but in the sense that today’s hopes can be the salve to tomorrow’s worries and pains. We can’t let fear or conflict stop the inevitable progression of humanity. We have to hold our heads up high and move forward. Even when the world screams at us to hate and mistrust one another, whether Liberal, Conservative, Muslim, Christian, White, or Black. Even when the world demands we fall into our comfort zones and put our egos before everyone else. Or to give in the hopelessness and apathy. As tempting as this may feel, it’s a fool’s gamble. Because the world will still continue to turn, and people will continue to populate the Earth for a very long time. Just as we look to those Americans who threw their fellow Japanese countrymen into internment camps during World War II with criticism and shame, our children might feel the same way about us. We run the risk of allowing our lives to exist on the darkest pages of American history.
And while some will choose to argue that perhaps fear is the right choice only for the sake of safety, this does no favors for the next generation. Eventually, our descendants will find their way to stability. To a peaceful and harmonious society, because deep down that is what everyone wants. Happiness. When it comes down to it, the decision we’re faced with now is whether to give in the our smallest and most destructive emotions, and leave a world that is mired in that negativity, or whether we will band together as the so-called ‘greatest generation’ did to leave the next a better world than the one we inherited. It is thanks to the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation that we no longer see the great world wars of the past, that we look back at all they gave and swear we won’t do that to one another again. In every generation there comes a time to make important decisions that will define who we are and how we will be remembered.
Our legacy today is by no means set in stone. Change has only just started. Exactly what direction that change will be in, will be decided in the upcoming years. It’ll take active participation, it’ll take acceptance of all our fellow countrymen no matter how much we disagree with their views, it’ll take time and hard work and sweat and maybe even tears. It’ll take understanding. And it’ll take the courage to try to understand things we may dislike or even despise. Our country is split almost in half, and both halves will have to learn to live with each other before we can build a home worth living in. It’ll take healing.
But it will also take action. It’ll take standing up to those who operate on ignorance and bigotry. It’ll take banding together with our neighbors, those who see eye-to-eye with us, to resist those who want to destroy our shared vision. It’ll take a fight against those who try to define us as a nation by hate. It’ll take love. It’ll take hope. It’ll take a lot of things, things I can’t speak of because I don’t I don’t know what they all are. It’ll take us all working as a team and figuring out exactly what it takes, together. This is our challenge. Now it’s our time to decide what kind of a legacy we will leave, whether we will be remembered as the generation that rose above the countless challenges of the world in unity, or as the generation that succumbed to fear and apathy.
I’m reminded of two quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King here. The first is, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”. We should think about this and what it means for us and what we’re doing in the coming years. The second is “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”. We should take that to heart, for these words have already guided an entire generation through unimaginable ordeals, and if we look to their wisdom they can guide us too.
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