There’s a trend going on in America – has been for some time. Let’s call it the end of the ME generation. For nearly 30 years, America was increasingly about ME and less about US. Everyone was out to get what my niece used to call “their deservement.” But a funny thing happened after 9-11. It turned out that a lot of people really did care about US. They wanted to do right for the country. But GWB put a damper on that public spirit. Instead of asking, “what you can do for your country,” he admonished us to “go shopping.” Well, it turned out that Americans were ready for a bigger challenge. We really do want to make the world a better place. We have come to realize that bigger houses and bigger cars don’t make us happy. Cocooning didn’t make us feel safer, just more isolated. We’re still scared. And we still might elect John McCain if some new trauma makes us scared enough. But we’re ready to stick our heads out and look around, and we don’t think the America we see really represents the America we believe in. It doesn’t make us as proud as it used to.
Selfishness will be with us always, but the über-trend today is a new reconnection with our communities and the rededication to bigger ideals. That’s why the green movement is gaining such strength. That’s what the local foods movement is all about. People are yearning to take individual steps toward making the world a better place and they yearn for leadership that will tell them how they can use their talents and energies to realize the better country and the better world that they just know has to be out there. Paul Hawken wrote about this new movement in Blessed Unrest. You should read it.
That’s where Barack Obama comes in. He didn’t invent the trend. Maybe he wasn’t even really aware of it. But he has tapped into America’s a desire to do good -- to be better -- that has been suppressed for the past seven years. The question of this election is, are we ready to be real Americans again?
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