An excellent argument could be made that we live in the best and most exciting time to be alive in the history of humanity.
There is, however, one area where things really seem to be going south at an alarming rate, and I’m not quite sure how to square that circle.
I’m talking about leadership, or at least what seems to pass for it. This is the part I don’t get: if the people are indeed the ones who actually pick their leaders, and things are, generally speaking, so great, then why are our leaders so shitty? Don’t these leaders reflect the society that elected them? And if so, how is this the best of times?
It doesn’t make sense, and it really interferes with my understanding about what a great time it is for humanity. I mean these are the people making the laws that govern life? Really? And this is somehow a good thing?
I have this nagging feeling that there is a point from which you can’t, as a society, return. Especially if you factor in that it was the culture that elected these people into office in the first place. Maybe we were always this bad, perhaps even worse.
I guess Dickens had it right when he wrote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” in 1859.
Maybe some things never change.