No doubt you’ve noticed that the world is a pretty chaotic place at the moment. There are unpredictable mechanisms in motion in most regions of the world. Some are catastrophes and some are evolutions that seem like they could just as easily go the other way. During my childhood we had the cold war – which as black and white. Then we had perestroika and it’s idealism – “the new openness” that later gave way to realism. All the while the west enjoyed great prosperity that fueled never before seen growth in China, India and in many other countries in Asia.
When Ronald Reagan demanded that the Gorbachev tear down the wall dividing Germany it was easier to have a grand vision. Freedom, democracy. progress.
The world has gotten more complicated since then. Democracy has been tried using different approaches with varying results in many places. Some have gotten unimaginably wealthy at the cost of the stability of the world’s economy. Only some of them have been punished for their irresponsibility and selfishness.
As a father of three young children, it’s hard not to wonder what kind of world they will live in. Richard Barrett, a leading values guru, wrote an interesting post on the state of leadership in 2011. It was pretty bleak and resulted in one comment (from me, after more than two months). Are we asleep at the wheel merely working to “get ours?”
Have we given up our capacity for healthy values and vision, and instead settled into a sort of drugged apathy fueled by consumerism? Is this a gap between generation shifts?
For me, these are important questions and they need to be addressed. What will you do?