Nationalism may be winning the day, but it won’t win the war. Despite our leaders’ collective turn inward and toward isolationism, the world is more connected than ever before. Economies rise and fall together. New waves of communicating bring everything into the daylight. We’ve grown to depend on one another; whether some like that or not is irrelevant. Our ability to communicate with someone on the other side of the globe makes tearing down the global village impossible. Instead, I think we should embrace this era of connectedness. Perhaps, now we can truly be our brother’s keeper.
All major religions and even those traditions without a focus on a supreme being and instead possessing a more humanistic focus ask us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are commanded by those we worship or a moral imperative to give of ourselves to our fellow man. In the global village, those needs are getting harder to ignore. Transportation, the written word, radio, television, and now the internet has made it impossible to turn a blind eye to those in a more desperate station than our own. We can choose to ignore this information and complain, or we can get to work.
In this new global village, we can focus on those who look and think like us or we can create something new and profound meant to improve the lives of all people. Despite politics, our aims shouldn’t be that different. We want the best for our families. We want safe neighborhoods, good schools, a sense of the possible, and a clear path to achieving it. We want to live without blood on our hands and to die knowing we did our best. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, these goals are universal. We may disagree on the best way to get there, but the goals remain the same.
Turning inward is to ignore the ideals we have been preaching since the dawn of our republic. For a long time, we have been a beacon. As Americans, we have staked our claim on the power of liberty, freedom, and unleashed prosperity. We have been indoctrinated to believe these claims and we have traveled from foreign shore to foreign shore with the same message. Where other arguments have failed, ours withstood the test of time. Now, when the world is more connected than ever before and it is simpler to spread our message, is not the time to take our toys and go home. We can lead the next wave of humanity. We can rally countries and people across the globe in a spirit of caring and mutual advancement. To do anything less than this is to forfeit the very notion of who we are.
No one knows what the next breakthrough in technology will be, but I feel safe betting that it too will bring us closer together and, if used properly, will make it easier to get work done. It will also unleash boundless opportunities to heal the ills of a prior generation. I, for one, hope my country is on the forefront of that breakthrough and once again returns to a leadership role of ensuring all boats are lifted with the tides of change.
Be good to each other,
-Nathan
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