Pessimism and Doom Our National Pastime: Flashback to the ’70s

July 10, 2008

Doom watching has of late become too much of a national pastime. It has afflicted far too many aspects of national policy: international relations, defense, natural resources, the economy, the environment, energy, etc. There has been pessimism, talk of inevitable decline, and of the twilight of democracy.
It is heady stuff. Entrapped by extrapolations and by rhetorical flourishes, it has too much affected the national mood. Yet, it too will be superseded. It is reminiscent of other periods of disenchantment. Yet, successfully to grapple with our problems, we shall have to diagnose them. Like Edmund Burke, two centuries ago, we are obliged to seek the sources of our present discontents. Yet we must avoid being swept up by the delights of diagnosis. We must assiduously avoid the seductive pleasures of making too much of our present discontents.

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