I know nobody who’s bullish about America’s future, whether they voted for the Nameless One or against him (yes, I’ve encountered a few). Prosperous, powerful, at peace, America’s going glug-glug, it seems, our best days past. The most sanguine shrug, no, they’re not confident, but let’s see how things turn out. The least ask if we’re contemplating repatriating. (Away from family, memories, language? – not a chance!)
Everybody has their pet theory for this pathology, which reflects their politics. (Predictably, we see what we expect to.) Income disparity, capitalism, climate risk, immigration, gender fluidity, clueless leadership, social media, plutocrats, woke-ism, elitism, democracy, bureaucracy, modernity, the Nameless One have all been fingered as culprits. If a human exhibited America’s symptoms, depression might be the diagnosis; but how can a seemingly healthy nation catch the contagion of despair? “Nothing comes from nothing,” growled Lear. There must be a cure for whatever’s bugging us, Science insists.
I blame the death of hope. The hopeful are happy, the hopeless not. Dog-pal Henry and his tribe live now; humans, past infancy, live in Tomorrow, which is, by definition, delusory, a mirage.
Perhaps the most memorable observer of hope was Dr. Johnson. Listen:
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.
Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
This from a lonely soul subject to the most crushing bouts of despair, who knew whereof he spoke.
How did America lose hope? Principally, by achieving its dream. Capitalism promised satisfaction by possession, “better things for better living.” A sizeable majority secured those better things – and didn’t feel better. Has it ever struck you that the most optimistic Americans are recent immigrants from less materially comfortable nations? Because they still possess hope.
When hope, the star in our sky, fades, we grow captious, querulous, unhappy where we are.
How to recover hope? Having twice lost it in my life – and tumbled into the perilous pit of depression – I see two strategies: first, find a new star and refix it in your sky; second, conceptualize a fiend and revisit it constantly.
The star is some glamorous thrilling Dream you can believe in. Locating it may take fortitude and discipline. The Wise Men were grumpy, down-at-the-mouth, bored when they decided to follow their star – in need of a driving dream. They can hardly have been confident when they set forth on their trek to Jesus – but they went anyway – and the rigors of their quest vanquished their discontent. Thoreau urged such daring in different words: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” he wrote. “Live the life you've imagined."
Fiends are easy to find. Death is a favorite. Love, loneliness, futility, failure have their fans. Mine is a compound of all these in the shape of DEPRESSION. “Never again!” I insist frantically, knowing my defenses frail.
America’s fiend is all too obvious: TYRANNY and, its precursor, CHAOS. These are terrible outcomes, which we inch closer to daily. And what should be our American dream? We’ve had many over the years: independence, emancipation, the frontier, stopping Hitler, reaching the moon. I’d favor saving our species and planet. But we need a leader to summon us to those giddying heights, who can encourage, persuade, lead. Rancor, revenge, and piracy make for a tiresome and insufficient star.