As I reflect on
this day in history and the people who supported and participated in the
invasion to take back Europe, I believe we’d do well to reflect on the
resilience and sacrifice of that generation. It seems to me that in three
generations we’ve lost something. I’m not certain I know exactly what we’ve
lost. I do know what I observe.
Over the past
decade I’ve observed: people who seem to be offended so easily as to appear
they’re searching for anything to be offended by; a perversion of science for
political gain (not new) by not only its consumers but by the reporting media and
the scientists; a willingness to accept mediocrity; a growing belief in the
need for immediacy; an educational system that not only fails to provide
knowledge but fails to teach critical thinking; higher education that talks
about diversity but doesn’t actually practice it; an alarming increase in the belief
of and reliance on external agency; a lack of respect and understanding for
history (the good, bad and the ugly); an inability or unwillingness to tolerate
stress; a willingness to blame inanimate objects for the behaviors of
individuals; a growing belief that one is owed more than one has earned; and, many
who have argued against the binary nature of human beings now using a binary approach
in arguments they make. It occurred to me as I’m typing that we lost (or are
losing) our resilience and tolerance for sacrifice, that we’re also becoming
reductionistic. Perhaps that’s it. We’ve entered a period of reductionism. Everything
is too complicated. Where we had one, two, or three choices we now have so many
that we’re exhausted by it all. But I know it’s not that simple. To boil it
down to reductionism is reductionistic.
It makes sense
that we’d want simple. It’s easy. It is predictable. We’re built to develop
simple heuristics. It’s very adaptive. Unfortunately, simple just isn’t in our
nature; especially when we have free time. And yet even when we acknowledge our
messiness, we try to solve problems (big, messy problems) by altering one
factor we think might be a lynch pin? Are we this naïve? If we treat the symptoms
of an illness but not its cause we’re just waiting for it to run it’s course;
either because we know it’s time-limited or it’s terminal. We’ve become so
weak, ignorant, naïve, offended, overly sensitive, closed-minded, uncaring,
pick your adjective, that we’re going to treat our problems with palliative
care rather that rolling up our sleeves, being honest about the messiness and working
toward fixing a big, messy problem we created and allowed to fester? My fear is
that we will. We’ve lost what the greatest generation had. I’m worried that if
we don’t start soon to regain what we’ve lost, we will pay a much greater
price.
