Our first little posting of a few
images of America over the years and the modest explanation of the images’
relationship to the past, present and future was overly simplistic. Those images
cover a lot of time and space. The initial post addresses almost nothing of the
challenges we face as a nation today, experiencing a growing gap between “rich
and poor,” “right and wrong,” “blue and red” or any other end points on a
linear scale.
A simple truth, however, is that
there really aren’t just two end points that pull us in one direction or
another, nor is there a linear scale that positions each of us. Such an
abstraction is not an element of the promise America held out nearly three
centuries ago, nor is it relevant in the age of super-connected cyberspace. Entry
points don’t exist at the right or left, or top or bottom of any scale because
the connected age of cyberspace renders such scales useless as a frame of
reference. In fact, the image of a linear scale only adds to the challenge of
visualizing where we’ve come since the advent of cyberspace.
The American Promise, not to be
confused with the American
Dream, is that we can all succeed in this nation through equal access to
the opportunities America has to offer. The promise also says that access might
be achieved from many, many entry points. The promise is as much about the
fairness and transparency of the process of access as it is about the outcome.
Our real challenge in fulfilling The
American Promise today is to learn from the past to inform our present to
prepare for our future in a way that accommodates our real needs, no matter
where our entry point was. The fulfillment of the promise is based on our citizens
and our leaders making certain no one is closed out because of where someone
might have started on that so-called scale. Effective leadership at all levels
and in all disciplines is critical to ensuring access to The American Promise.
It’s really been that way from
the beginning of the nation but is now aggravated by the fact that we’ve grossly
overlooked the failures of leadership in this generation. Somehow, our leaders encouraged
us to collectively decide that what divides us was stronger than what united us
as a nation. We say “collectively” because that’s been the result, whether
intentional or not, of an aggregate of individual and group behaviors, aided by
massive proliferation of the connecting technologies of cyberspace. These
behaviors and technologies have changed The American Promise to something much different
than it was even 25 years ago, something our leaders either failed to notice or
consciously exploited.
The context of The American
Promise is very modestly depicted in our images, intended to show the diversity
of race and gender and interest and invention that made America what it is, and
how it could offer so much promise to so many people. We should still be proud:
as a nation relative to the rest of the world, we got off to a good start. Context
was actually built into the Constitution of the United States even though it started
out as a compromise based on the events that composed the perspectives of the
late 18th Century. The framers used a process that was open and
understood by all as a key element of the context, and it’s paid off.
In spite of the compromises of
that time and place, many good and some not so good, it has been our
Constitution that also provides a synergistic power that we still tap today to
keep The American Promise alive. All of us have experienced how the promise is
constantly adapting to stay alive and offer an almost eternal hope for the
future. That hope is what makes Americans so distinctive in this world. It’s
just as a French person once told Chuck, “We admire you because you Americans
think you can do just about anything. You don’t find that in
Europeans. There is a sense of moderation and limitations I just don’t see
in Americans. You guys think you can do anything, and you know what? You
are often right because you believe in yourselves.” We still believe in the
opportunity that is the core of The American Promise.
In this blog, our goal is to
reexamine The American Promise, synergize it around the current social and
technological contexts that exist in our day and the near future, and discuss
how we all can benefit from both the promise and process of opportunity we
believe our Founders intended to convey. The American Promise in the Connected
Age is quite alive and capable of guiding not only Americans but all the
citizens of the world to benefit from who we were and who we will be.
We may no longer be as
exceptional as we previously thought, nor quite the once-powerful engine to
fulfill the American Dream as many conceived in past generations. However,
America is still capable of keeping its promise to be the pinnacle of
opportunity, freedom and security. And, even though we may be changing, it’s
encouraging to know we’re able to recognize these changes. A January, 2014 Pew
Research Poll on the Growth of Inequality and the solutions we as a nation
are thinking about across the span of political leanings, show that access to
opportunity is still a major national objective – indeed at the core of The
American Promise. It’s not about equality of outcome but equality of
opportunity: a huge difference!
Bottom line: we must not sell
ourselves short. Certain countries may exceed the US in a few select
categories (higher average life expectancies, per capita wages, lower rates of
gun violence, higher math scores, etc.), but there is no other country that has
a better “all around package” that emphasizes access to opportunity. Even
with our occasional blunders both at home and outside the US, this is
absolutely no time to be selling ourselves short.
No, this is a time we need to proudly
hold The Promise more closely than ever. This is a time to keep our focus on
addressing the places we fall short, especially at home. Moreover, this is a
time for a sober yet optimistic reassessment of where we are today, informed and
inspired by the dreams of our founders but, equally importantly, reflecting the
world in which we find ourselves now.
So, please go back and look at our
very modest collection of images again. Roll up your sleeves and get ready for
a sober, yet optimistic assessment of where we are and what we need to do to
take the best advantage of it. Observe the context and what we must synergize
to fulfill the American Promise in the Connected Age.
Get on board with us and make
this a better discussion.
by
Carl W. Hunt and Charles E. Hunt, 2/4/2014
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