The Way Forward to a Better Future

We've reached the point where we're unfazed by things that should shake us to the core.

They weren't weighing science or the national interest; they weren't balancing present benefits against future costs. Instead of doing the work of legislators, that is, they were acting like employees. Forget the idea that they're public servants; the truth is that, in every way that matters, they work for Exxon and its kin.

If you find this too harsh, think about how obligated you feel when someone gives you something.

The big boys are, of course, counting on us simmering down; they're counting on us being cynical, on figuring there's no hope or benefit in fighting city hall. A good time to take an initial stand comes later this month, when rallies outside every federal courthouse will mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision. We need to say, loud and clear: "Sorry. Time to give it back."

I can't help feeling lately that the developed world generally and the U.S. specifically (and U.S. politics even more specifically) are in a kind of slow-decline funk that no amount of rational analysis will cure. There are the proximate reasons for the funk -- economies slumping, middle-class security evaporating, income inequality widening, the Obama Hope Bubble popping -- but in the background, I think, is also a looming awareness that we are, in various ways, on a ticking timer. What we're doing can't last. This is not a pleasant revelation.

We just don't seem to know what to do -- not on individual questions like oil pipelines or health care mandates or payroll taxes, but big-picture wise. What kind of people are we? What world are we trying to build?

What we need now, more than ever, are not critiques of the extant but models of the new -- new institutions, new social practices, new identities, new purposes, new ways of measuring and valuing what matters. We need people who can make a prosperous, enjoyable, sustainable world vivid and real. That will be the work of creators and dreamers, not logic choppers. It will mean acts of social and economic entrepreneurship, art and storytelling, irrational hope and optimism.