Never before has a US President threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” And when challenged that such action could be a war crime, responded that he was “not at all” worried. Probably not since Hitler, has such a public statement from a western head-of-state been so seemingly acceptable to a significant proportion of their country’s population?
Author and journalist David Brooks, in his recent books and associated essays, makes the case that rising tribalism, racism, nationalism and social media is leading to the steady evisceration of the moral norms that can make our world a decent place to live—and their gradual substitution with distrust, aggression, and rage.
How did we get here? For the United States, Brooks maps out the pathway over the last seventy years.
In the 1940s and 50s, people had faith in authority and trust in institutions such as the military, government, corporations, unions and the church. They had trust in the local community.
Brooks recounts how he recently heard historic recordings of the day after US victory in World War 2. What struck him was the humility rather than overt celebration and gloating. A passage read at the time included: “we won the war because our men are brave and because of many other things like great allies and great material blessings. We did not win it because destiny created us better than any other people. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than proud.”
But while the culture of the 50s favoured strict and sometimes discriminatory values, most people were prepared to sacrifice some freedom for the stability it bought.
Dissatisfaction with conformity, lack of opportunity for women and blacks became more prominent as we entered the 1960s. The dominant paradigm in the 60s became liberation – throwing off restraints so we can have a more creative and fair society.
The 1970s consolidated the shift from restraint to liberation. Some of the best rock songs and movies were born in that era. But one of the consequences of liberation was social chaos. Divorce rates and violent crime skyrocketed. Americans started to lose faith in institutions with the failure in the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.
The backlash came in what Brooks calls the ‘Bourgeois 80s’, with the advent of Reagan and Thatcher, and the reimposition of conservative values like being self-disciplined, entrepreneurship, and emphasis on character.
The 1990s was an age of synthesis, where the bohemian values of the 60s were reconciled with the Bourgeois values of the 80s. Divisions were broken down: European unification, the collapse of communism, the Oslo Peace Process. Whole Foods Markets was created.
The 2000s saw the loss of faith in this reconciliation. Through events like 9/11, the Iraq War, and the Financial Crisis, Americans suffered a loss of faith in their safety, their ability to do good, and in unregulated capitalism. The internet and social media were created. Democracy stopped spreading around the world and started its retreat which continues to this day.
Along with these changes has been a loss of social connection and moral knowledge. Americans have told successive generations of young people to find their own truth, come up with their own morality, and so there is no shared moral order left. That means that if we can’t agree on what things we ought to do, we can’t trust each other. Only 30% of Americans today say they trust their neighbour (only 19% among Millennials).
A loss of common trust leads to people feeling betrayed and anxious, and to a rise in pessimism and humiliation as society becomes more unequal. The divide between the haves and have-nots has widened dramatically.
Humiliation results in feelings that we can’t control our own life, that the system is running us, that we feel unseen, and our social standing is worthless. These feelings turn into resentment at our superiors (in status) and their values. One response is to declare those values worthless or sham ideals.
People who are resentful and distrustful want to elect people to blow up the system. There were enough of them to elect Donald Trump two times.
Brooks says that when you’re in the middle of a decade of resentment, politicians find it easy to motivate people by appealing to their dark passions. It’s anger. It’s hatred. It’s fear. But when these emotions are directed at everything, they become incredibly destructive.
How does Brooks see this turning around?
“In history, we have case after case of countries breaking themselves open and saying we need to change. If you look at Britain in the 1820s and the 1830s, Australia in the 1970s, Germany and Japan after World War II, South Korea in the 1980s, Rwanda after 1994, Chile after 1990. Or you look at our own country, look at … how much culture has changed in the last 70 years. Look at how dynamic our culture is. Do we really think that the same country that shifted in the 60s from the 50s, that shifted in the 80s from the 70s, that shifted in a bad way in the last 20 years? Do we really think our culture has stopped? I just don’t.”
Brooks believes people will see that the current paradigm is not working and that a change is needed. He thinks people will diagnose the problem as an emotional one, a psychological one and a cultural one which requires a shift in values.
He quotes an interview with black author James Baldwin: “You know, there’s not as much humanity in the world as one would like, but there’s more than you would think. There’s enough.”
Brooks calls Baldwin’s attitude defiant humanism. That even in the cruellest and most resentful and suspicious and distrustful times, it’s possible to say, “No, I’m standing for the higher virtues. I’m standing for the highest ideals. I’m standing for the deepest humility. And I’m standing for a cultural shift against resentment and toward admiration.”
He calls on Americans to do that today.
The writer is a co-author of Court of the Grandchildren, a novel set in 2050s America.
Main image credit: truthseeker08 via Pixabay
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