But how? There is no one shared culture in America; we are a collection and melting pot of cultures and ethnicities from all across the world. That’s what makes America unique but it’s also what renders us vulnerable and easily manipulated. Divisive tactics work well to keep groups separated, encouraging infighting that distracts us from more important issues and makes reaching a consensus damn near impossible amidst all the petty squabbling. How do we reconcile this truth?

I believe this is what makes the United States all that more vulnerable to corruption too. Our lack of homogeneity means we experience great clashes in our struggle for equal rights. Our country’s history was forged in fire, steel, blood and tears. As many were, but ours is like no other on the planet, as Rick Shenkman pointed out: http://wakemenow.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/just-how-stupid-are-we/

We were a beautiful experiment. And now life is changing more rapidly than we can keep up. Globalization ushers in a whole new era, folks. This isn’t just about trade agreements and military conquests; it’s a whole new way of living on planet earth as never before experienced in all of known human civilization. That’s nuts. It’s overwhelming to consider, but it’s true, making it all the more fascinating. Times are indeed a-changin’…more nowadays than even the ’60s and ’70s could have predicted. But there were accurate predictions spoken, as by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., George Orwell, and many others.

Our problems are much greater than our ethnic diversity and economic stratification. As Nietzsche pointed out, our gods are all dead. Joseph Campbell elaborated that now more than ever we do need a unifying myth to carry us through, a new understanding of “god” and our role as humans in this thing we call life. But what would that be? What would it take at this point? Is it realistic to hope for? Do we have any choice?

I don’t like the term “postmodernism.” Though in a sense it does aptly describe the transition U.S. society is experiencing as of late. Not sure what to label it as. It seems the only thing truly capable of unifying our people anymore is the drive for money, some toward excesses and others trying to secure relatively basic comforts. We tolerate those in charge to run our economy into the ground because a.) we don’t have any better sense, enough of us not being educated on civics and economic theory; b.) everything has been made so damned complicated to where no average layman has time and skills to sort through all the rubbish that obscures the basic truths; and c.) we lack imagination to think outside the box to consider alternatives. Add it all together and you have a very stubborn situation to attempt to overcome.

It is a moral crisis, and not one easily remedied at that. Modern religions are being replaced by idolatry of money and credit. Scruples and ‘balls’ only extend so far as chicanery and self-servitude for most people. “Integrity” speaks more of computer systems and automobile assemblage than it does to human characteristics in our modern times. The name of the game is “ME” not “you” or “us.” Lines are blurred all over the place and we’re not sure what morality even means anymore, with relativism influencing how we look at the world.

Not that any of this is necessarily “bad”; it simply is what it is. Not sure that it can be stopped seeing as how people generally have to go splat before enough realize the chosen course probably isn’t the best to continue pursuing. Rome experienced this, but I wonder what spin new-age technology will put on our current situation. Time will tell.