The Future

When I first became aware of the Lapham's Quarterly, I ordered a past edition called The Future for my college aged son, as well as the next year's 4 editions for my wife.  The Future stayed in my son's hands since then until our family vacation in late July when The Future returned to me. 

A few days ago, I began reading it.  Already, I have encountered a number of thought provoking essays and quotes.

One very interesting quote written by John Kenneth Galbraith from The Affluent Society is

"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding"

Another, attributed to Jean de la Bruyere is

"We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious".

Interestingly, the second quote by Bruvere was written in 1688.  Makes you wonder, both, how extreme income disparity must have been in the 17th century, and how much progress has been made in the past 325 years since.  I like to think that the 17th century's haves were all winners of the birth lottery; good names with established pedigrees, while the have nots were virtually everyone else not born into such lucky fortune.  Assuming that is true, and that the concept of a middle class had not yet been conceived, or existed, society has made vast progress.  While place of birth, economic level of one's parents, and mixture of genes and environment still influence greatly the eventual outcome of a person's success in life, there are many more homes in which one can be born which will provide moderate opportunity as compared to the all or nothing status of 1688.  And, there is certainly a greater chance that a person can break through the barriers of the negative details of where one is born, due to the tremendous opportunities that capitalism and the free market provide. 

Still, it is certainly not the vision of Galbraith who helped influence the programs of the 1960's and 1970's, the so called Great Society programs.  His quote, to me, seems to be saying that once one becomes rich, the ability to understand the situation of all that are not, is limited.  Is this not reflected in our current Congress, where most of the Senators are millionaires as are a large percentage of the House members?  When it becomes so easy for them to continue tax advantages for the wealthy individuals and corporations while cutting SNAP money for those in the direst of needs, is that not their wealth impinging on their ability to understand the poorest of their constituents?  (Let alone, is that not the most glaring example of how American politics and governance is certainly not as Christian as we would like to believe).

What is so mind boggling to me, is that daily, we read of rich and famous people who have serious problems, financial, marital, mental.  All their money has done little to make them happy.  While I certainly don't know the details of Robin Williams' recent suicide, it is common knowledge that he was drug dependent.  Despite his obvious genius, despite his ability to make me laugh until I peed my pants, despite his remarkable acting skills which ranged from the most hilarious to the most dramatic, he chose to end his life.  Yet, despite the obvious, despite the fact that study after study demonstrates that after a certain point, more money does not lead to more happiness, we continue to fight each other as we grasp for the gold ring.  And, in opting for quick rich schemes and lottery tickets, or worse, engaging in businesses that take advantage of others to make money, whether it be senior scams or selling sub prime mortgages, we continue to build walls to the understanding that Galbraith described.

In his introduction to The Future, Lewis Lapham uses a number of points to distinguish how the future has changed in America since the 1960's.  Ending racial inequality, eliminating poverty, reaching the moon were but a few of the goals of America in the days of JFK and LBJ.  And these national goals were shared by many citizens.  We were inspired to think that we could accomplish such feats, each doing our part individually, the goals prioritized collectively by our government.

Fear of the future now seems more prevalent than hope in its coming.  The news is filled with doom, whether it be terrorists in the Middle East or climate change, the corporate mentality of profit over people or our belief that only by polluting Earth can we provide the energy we need to prosper.  Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, Religious or Agnostic, no one is free from the guilt of using the fear of the future, the fear of what if we do or don't do this or that, to control the populace and increase the voting rolls or church pews.

The Future.

It was just a few seconds away as I began this post, became the present when I began this paragraph, will be the past when you read this essay.

The Future is what we make of it.  Sounds elementary, I know, but if we continue to fear the future then it will be a fearful place.  Worse, the future is just the present, over and over again.  So, if we continue to despise our present, hate our job, tolerate our kids or our spouses, believe in the worst of our neighbors and our leaders, then we condemn the future to be a reflection of today. 

Can the future be a place where food insecurity does not exist in America?  Can the future be a place where the faithful respect the religions of others, and glorify their god through good works and deeds?  Can the future be a place where one's gender, race, age, heritage, and sexual orientation, are as innocuous as one's handedness or shoe size? 

Or will wealth, individual as well as national, keep us blind to understanding?