The American Moment

[Valin]

Commentary:

John Podhoretz

September 2012

 

A thought experiment: A child is born somewhere, anywhere, on the earth in the past decade. The family of that child wishes or needs to leave its home—to escape tyranny, war, the possibility of war, or simply to find a better life. Now, assume the family has access to every conceivable bit of information it can gather through Google about the relative conditions of the nations of the world. Where would the family of that child wish to go?

 

(Snip)

 

So as they contemplated the world around them, they would see a United States that is in a condition (thus far) of mild decline. Some of that is the result of the financial crisis, but some of it is the result of a shift in the country’s own consciousness and sense of itself. The United States no longer conducts itself as though it is in a race against other nations to prove something—a race that characterized the national character for close to two centuries. The quest to be the biggest, the best, the wealthiest, the most powerful is no longer the primary national goal. The United States seems, rather, to be a place where, culturally and politically, the primary concern is the protection of gains already made, and the search for a greater degree of safety from the unexpected bumps and perils that characterize human existence.

 

(Snip)

 

The parlous condition of the world in 2012 is not the inadvertent result of that leadership fatigue. But it points out the hazards of such fatigue. The United States can either be buffeted by winds of change or it can try to chart a course through them that others can follow. Such is the gift, and the challenge, of the American Moment.