America, Then and Now

Three and a half decades ago, I chose to come to this country to attend Harvard, then MIT, a journey made possible by perfect test scores and full scholarships. Though my father was a top-flight engineer, our income could never have afforded the astronomical (for Greeks) fees. I was well aware that the US was far from perfect and saw more warts while I lived and traveled here - although, as I tell European friends who ask me how I endure it, I live in Cambridge, not the US. Yet this nation was still a beacon for those of us who were hopeful romantics, who dreamed of achieving and contributing in an accepting meritocracy.

When I first came, the prevailing attitude in the US was that of an engineer. Failure was not an option. Competence and problem solving were gods. The infrastructure was superb, along with the civic attitudes and shared goals that go with such a context. The society was generous, curious, friendly, outward-looking. I encountered other cultures mingling in the not-quite-melting pot, other ways of thinking that I would have never discovered in the homogeneous culture of my birth.

Then came the Republican interregnum, culminating in the eight nightmarish years of the Bush administration. During those years, this country and its people turned into something sickeningly reminiscent of imperial Rome in its dotage. Persons and institutions became incurious, willfully ignorant, sanctimonious, petulant, small-minded, small-hearted, irrational, inhumane. They turned inward, stopped thinking of the future and the world - even as US corporations and armies laid waste to much of it - and concentrated exclusively on narrowly defined individual concerns with an attitude of "I got mine, Jack, and the devil take the rest". Efficiency and acountability gave way to ass-covering policies (from religiosity to convenient memory lapses) and "gotcha" economics; exploration yielded to forms in quintuplicate and small print. Empathy, compassion, finesse, courtesy, eloquence, reasoning, learning became suspect. Plans for great advances in knowledge and social justice dwindled to the tunnel vision of making enough money to escape to a Tyvek Macmansion with a 50-inch plasma TV in a gated community.

The facts around the Challenger explosion of January 1986 illustrate the beginning of the mindset that led to what we have become now. The launch didn't serve science but politics: it was meant to serve as a triumphal exclamation point to Reagan's state of address; the civilian in the mission was deliberately chosen for mediocrity and in fact failed most of the NASA routine tests (the overriding criterion was that s/he should be a complacent, unquestioning Republican - a criterion later expanded for choices of key people, including the position of president); the administrators and contractors bullied the scientists into a risky launch, reversing the traditional decision policy; after the disaster, every involved party pointed at each other in a circle instead of taking responsibility or proposing useful solutions; and during the investigation, the opinions of qualified scientists were ignored - in fact, denigrated - in favor of an amorphous miasma of fake piety and indignation. In the thirty years following, the Overton window steadily moved to the right and the bottom, resulting in today's baboon shrieks from talk show hosts, financiers and politicians who use fear, hatred and ignorance as banners and prodding sticks.

In short, a nation that once was at least trying to be progressive devolved into a horde of atomized, disenfranchised people who behave like spoiled children and allow their financial and political institutions to treat them like serfs - except that, individually and collectively, this country has an excess of "lawyers, guns and money". In a frightening parallel to the Weimar Republic of the thirties, people are encouraged to collude in their own enslavement and to vent unfocused anger on any convenient target - from the non-existent threat in Iraq to people who point out that anthropogenic global warming is with us or that healthcare in today's US is an abject (though preventable) moral, financial, political and scientific failure.

Now, this nation has been granted another chance - perhaps the last chance to arrest the decline before it becomes irreversible. Its people elected someone who embodies the signature outstanding qualities of this society: a mixed-race, multicultural, pragmatic meritocrat, a flexible and principled doer who, in political fact, is about as socialist as Eisenhower. But one swallow doesn't bring the spring. And the tendency to put Others belatedly and grudgingly in positions of power during crises is a common ploy of those who want to maintain the status quo without consequences to themselves. The unprecedented, unreasoning hatred and disrespect towards Obama is emblematic of the country trampling on its own best principles and representatives.

I chose this country as my home - and as a cultural half-breed I'm profoundly aware of its unique makeup and its still great potential. As an immigrant, a citizen, a cosmopolitan, a scientist, a writer, a human being, I won't give up the vision that brought me here and made me who I am. And I call upon all who dream and think likewise to join me:

Let's dig her out and rekindle her light!

 

 

Comments

[hannahg123]

I don’t believe the Overton Window has inched to far right or down as you perceive. Progressivism has been incrementally destroying our way of life since Woodrow Wilson. During the Bush administration, the left’s “shrieking baboons” were more shrill and defamatory than those of today’s right. I agree that the Iraq War was mishandled. However, the anthropogenic climate change theory puts my teeth on edge. Why not consider “Solar-Cycle Warming at the Earth’s Surface and Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity” by Ka-Kit Tung and Charles D. Camp as an alternate assumption? HealthCare can be adjusted to fit those who are not covered. I do not feel that handing over 1/6th of our country’s economy to the Federal Government is wise. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, Fanny May and Freddie Mac are miserable failures. I do not want the HealthCare Industry to fall into that abyss. Not to be in disagreement again, but the left has the bulk of lawyers and money not the right. (George Soros, Big Hollywood, Big Academia, Big Pharma etc)

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Thou dost protest too much. I read Ayn Rand, too, when I was a teenager. But since then, I've put away childish things. You're entitled to your incorrect opinions, particularly about global warming (the anthropogenic contribution to this cycle is not in doubt) and about privatization of everything with subsidies to the rich, which brought us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves now.

[hannahg123]

Everyone has that kernel of greed that prompts greater creativity and desire to do their very best. If I get that diploma of higher education; have a splendid job; marry and bring forth offspring, why can’t I purchase that Mcmansion, (gated communities are not my style) fine automobile and prosper? Redistribution of my hard earned wealth is NOT AN OPTION. Contributions to charitable institutions, religious affiliates or catastrophic fundraisers have always been happily voluntary. I resent obligatory taxation funneling cash to an industry whose goals do not fit my criteria.

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

The primary kernel that prompts creativity is curiosity. Fame and profit do play a role, but come second. As for the redistribution of your wealth, 1) it's already been redistributed through the hidden charges of subsidizing mega-farms, credit card companies, oil barons, weapons production and 2) if there is no state to protect you, a bigger bully will come along and take it from you, no matter how many guns you own.

I realized that your posts epitomize the atomized, self-disen­franchisin­g attitude I discuss in my article. It's indicative of the madness that the people who are shrieking the loudest against Obama's mild directives are those who stand to benefit from them the most (excepting, of course, the highly paid instigators of the mob mentality).

[Kathryn70]

Athena,

Historically, one of this country's greatest strengths have been the brilliant minds from all across the world who have come here to participate in the dream of America. The dream needs to move foreword into the new century and this country needs to continue to attract those brilliant minds, but we won't if we continue on the path economic banditry, social inaction that the past decade has seen.

Your rallying cry is much appreciated and I pray it's taken up many more people in this amazing immigrant nation we have created. Long live the melting pot, may we always keep that synergy alive!

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Indeed, this is a nation of immigrants who were subject to derision and suspicion themselves when they arrived. Some came for a better life -- but many, like me, came because this country had such enormous potential. To see this promise threatened by extinction is well-nigh unbearable.

[Josh Stella]

Nice article,

I grew up in the US (Wisconsin, Virginia, Iowa, California, Florida) and agree with you 100% Our country has the potential to be a true beacon of progress to the world but for the last 30 years we've been selling our moral and industrial assets on a fire sale. Thanks to the Repubs and Clinton Dems, we've exported our manufacturing, elevated bankers to hero status and used our military to forward corporate rather than National goals. I'll be here with you, working for the future where scientists and engineers build a better USA instead of actors, religious nuts and idiots work for our destruction.

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you, Josh! Don't forget the artists, too -- we need bards!

[TheTRUTHbyGod]

Dig her out, yes, indeed. I will find my cocoa and think about this. Gosh.

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

Definitely! We need deep-thinking and -hugging bears on our side as well. They're experts on the Snugglabiity Quotient (TM).

[lauriegray]

Hello Athena,

I am friends with Josh and Katherine. He posted the link to your article on FB. This is how I came to read your article. I am proud of you. Thank you for sharing such intimate feelings and I will join in your fight to restore our beautiful country's light.

Thank you.
Laurie G.

[Athena Andreadis, Ph.D. - Huffpost Blogger]

You're welcome, Laurie. I'm happy you liked the call to action and thank you for taking the trouble to comment. Most people only comment when they disagree, so hearing from the aye-sayers is vital for the writer's stamina and morale.