(Cont.) “If, in our modern obsession with consumption and its unquenchable need for energy, we’re setting the earth on fire, our American forebears were so eager to build their lives anew with plenty, they trashed forests, people (the Indians), and whole landscapes with reckless abandon and disregard for the long-haul future. In that respect, our culture hasn’t changed.
“And a curse on you if you dare to resist. Either you will be condemned as a ‘radical, socialist, Democrat’ or you will be left by the roadside, barefooted, hungry and thirsty, while the rest of your fellow citizens—Democrat, Republican, or Unaffiliated—zoom past you in over-sized, gas-guzzling pick-ups and SUVs or in conscience-certified EVs replete with precious earth metals that required out-of-sight, out-of-mind, environmentally devastating extraction from . . . the earth.
The alien’s filaments were blinking bright orange, and for the first time, I heard the sound of gears grinding.
I decided to flip things around. “Believe it or not, this assault on the earth left a trail of positive traits, some of which have been and can continue to be deployed to counter the damage.”
“Based on what you’ve described thus far, I have low expectations,” said the alien.
“That’s because you’re not wholly attuned to humanity’s most salient positive side.”
“What’s that?”
“Resilience,” I said. “We always seem to bounce back.”
“Bounce?”
“Well, maybe not like a pinball in a pinball machine, but we figure out how to adapt, innovate, and engineer, and most important of all, we know how to dream big dreams. And perhaps even bigger than big dreams is our naivete. If we knew at the front end of our dreams what it would take to bring them to fruition, most of the time we wouldn’t even make the attempt.
“Now, bring people from around the world into a single nation and throw them to their own devices in a land of abundance and opportunity, and Voila!—in short order you’ll have the biggest, most powerful economy on earth—along with loads of know-how, technologies, and most critical, unlimited human intellectual capital unleashed.
“Accompanying this miracle—and in many ways fostering and causing it—has been our democratic political framework.”
“‘Has been’?”
“Okay, fine. Burst my bubble.”
“Burst your bubble? I don’t see any bubble.”
“I was speaking figuratively.” Apparently the idiom hadn’t made it into the alien’s download. “The term bubble is used as a metaphor for ‘unrealistic presumption.’”
“Okay, I get it. You think I was deflating your overly-sanguine assessment of democracy as a continuing force.”
“Well, uh, perhaps. Maybe subconsciously I was thinking that the fostering, enabling benefits of democracy are in our glorious past, not our troubled present, or our future decline.”
“But isn’t democracy descendant? At least, that’s what I’ve inferred from all you’ve said.”
“It’s easy to convince oneself that democracy in America is under attack as never before, but believe it or not, I’ve been trying hard lately to think and act otherwise.
“Is that what you call Pollyannaish?” The word surprised me, and hearing it from the alien made me feel a bit . . . naive.
“Perhaps,” I said, “but then again, maybe that’s the ‘American’ in me shining forth, despite my increasing criticism of the culture that surrounds me.”
Just then I thought about the James Webb telescope and its view and images of the far edge of the universe. (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
