The United States is and has been experiencing continuous change. Socially and demographically the present U.S.A. isn’t much like it was even twenty years ago. The question today might be more a matter of how to keep what is good about the nation intact.
The problems of political wisdom and philosophy of governance that a modern, large nation like the U.S. experiences are compounded with the rapid growth of knowledge as well as population, technology and cultural profusion of globalism within what was formerly a more unified populace. Politicians are just individuals and an individual's personal knowledge is limited. Limited personal knowledge in a complex society limits the potential for innovation and change. Because the social and infrastructure constructs that already are present are easier to understand and operate than the challenge of inventing new infrastructures that are definitely possible with if the knowledge of all the people of the nation were combined into one mind, and because the horizon of understanding everything that exists already in human knowledge is beyond personal understanding of any individual, fundamental technical progress or change outside the existing paradigms is improbable.
Some changes are good, some bad and some ugly; constant and reliable elements that allow social stability and continuity are equally as necessary as change.
Arnold Toynbee noted that one of the reasons civilizations fail is that they cannot change their basic infrastructure; once a civilization (or nation in the case of the U.S.A. is built up and established it, vested interests and culture grow around it that resist newer ways. Toynbee used the ancient Greek city-states as an example; they could not federate in the way Roman did and failed to the new power that conquered them.
No comments:
Post a Comment