It's hard for anyone with a Great Depression childhood to anguish wholeheartedly over the decline of the United States in wealth and power. It will be sad, yes, to come down from that 90's peak, as Fareed Zakaria (The Post-American World) tells us we are doing, but might it give us a chance to learn the joys of eating oatmeal? I mean around the table in the morning, the penny-a-bowl kind, with Dad fortifying himself for battle with the world and Mother getting ready to maintain the fortress. Austerity, for all its grind, did have its exhilarating moments.
Even if you're not captured by sentimental images, as mine might be, you have to admit that when Emerson and Thoreau spoke of the hazards of material success they had a point. Remember them, through the whole race from one technology to another, telling us (from our college anthologies) where neglect of spiritual and cultural values might leave us? "We are in great haste," said Thoreau, "to build a telegraph from Maine to Texas, but Maine and Texas, perhaps, have nothing important to say to each other." He should have listened in on Twitter. Maybe austerity would bend our ears toward those authors. It would be exhilarating to see them make a comeback.
Then there's the exhilaration (for some) in the satirical lament. Spokesmen for the spiritual can make fun of those still attached to the material. "Oh how will my daughter live without twenty-cent-a-bowl Choco Puffs? How can my son tolerate a swollen cell phone that does only 250 other things? How can my husband lose his SUV?" Spokesmen for the meek can picture the proud adjusting to their loss of power, presidents from Texas learning a new walk, athletes at the Olympics learning to dip Old Glory as other nation's flags are dipped, in courtesy.
And finally, there's that exhilaration in the knowing lament. You can assure your wise fellows that you too can see the writing on the wall, and yes, it's so sad.
So, contemplating the decline of our nation we find many opportunities for exhilaration. Can we find the same opportunities in the grander decline, that of the West? There certainly is occasion enough, especially if we make America's success the West's success, as Niall Ferguson (Civilization: The West and the Rest) lets us do. We might be stirred watching our fellow Westerners forced to pay more attention to Eastern peace of mind. And satirical lament ("Nations pestering China for aid? World policemen coming from Asia?"), that will still be stimulating.
But, you know, sooner or later most of us are going to ask, about all these world-stage declines, "What the hell do I care?" Who ever changed a single item on his TO DO list, the daily worry sheet, in order to halt his nation's or his culture's decline? Or spur its rise? We know that none of those big expressions make any difference down where we are. Historians fight hugely over "the idea of Progress." All right, in each of my decisions I want to make progress. Over there is a fellow who in each of his decisions just wants to avoid regret. At the end of the day are we in different places? I doubt it.
We don't really care but we think we do. And maybe we think we care because we listen to ourselves when we think we are most serious, speaking in intellectual company. There we make the knowing lament. And there we need Samuel Johnson's rebuke. He called the lament "cant." You (like Boswell) might say, "These are sad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times," but you don't mean a bit of it. Do we need Boswell's honesty when we're caught? "I declare, Sir, upon my honor, I did imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but it was, perhaps, cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less."
I think we have a better chance of discovering what we care about by listening to what we say — and don't say — to our children. We don't say, "Work hard, keep America a superpower, don't let the West decline." We say, "Work hard, get ahead, stay out of trouble, be nice." If the aggregate effort brings compliments to our nation or culture, fine. If not, fine. The Swiss look happy, and they're not getting any big-time compliments. If there is such a thing as a "national peace of mind" maybe theirs is the way to it.
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