Into a Time of Can't

I grew up in a simpler time, when there were three television networks, two superpowers, and one phone company. Life had but one direction, upward and onward, more and better, cast off the old and embrace the modern, a world of exciting potential. Progress! Rockets shot satellites into space, jet airliners zoomed through the skies, doctors eradicated diseases, everyone could afford a car in the garage and a TV in the living room. Interstate highways! A man on the moon! Better living through chemistry!

All of this took effort and money, of course, but the question was never if but when. We would figure out a way to build it or invent it or discover it, then the rest of the world could marvel at what we had accomplished while we boldly marched ahead to outdo ourselves again. We tackled racism and sexism and wars with confidence and assurance that we would make things right. We had problems but more importantly we had solutions.

This American Optimism was infectious and intoxicating. But it did not last. Slowly, over the years, the lively spirit of can do became the half-muttered resignation of can't. Public proclamations of future greatness ring hollow, especially when they're followed by long lists of things we have to reduce or eliminate. The excited Yes! of fifty years ago is now a meek no or, at best, probably not.

How did it happen? Was the decline in expectations inevitable? Will those who are growing up and maturing now be affected by the larger sense of limits and constraints? Will the young and new be able to reverse the decline of the old and worn-out?