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Empires of Advancement

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Alexander the Great is one of those rare figures in world history who genuinely deserves the accolades given by the “Great Man Theory” of history. From his base in Greece, he conquered most of Eurasia in just a few years, extending the reach of Hellenistic (Greek) culture and thought which already dominated the Mediterranean.

Yet his empire died with him in 323 BCE. An empire that large simply could not last at that time, at least without intense leadership and the sharp edge of a sword.

Fast forward a mere three hundred years, and Eurasia was dominated by four great, permanent empires which included as much as three quarters of the 300 million or so people on this planet. They were largely at peace with each other, too. What happened? What made this possible? More to the point, what can we learn from this incredible change in how people were organized and lived their everyday lives?

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Individualism or Interdependence?

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Long ago, most Americans lived as Laura Ingalls Wilder chronicled in the “Little House” series.  Pa Ingalls and family were out in the wilderness, living with the rhythm of the land and putting away what they could to survive long winters and perhaps beyond.  The family’s net worth was what they had around them.

That life has been replaced with interdependence based on a dollar value assigned to absolutely everything.  We all get by with any extra scratch, should there be some, not stored up to get through the winter but properly invested in convertible assets.  This means everyone is subject to  the “free market”, which determines the value of all assets including experience, talent, and work.

That interdependence has changed our world to one with much less hard work or struggles against nature, and yet to many it has become as hostile as any winter on the Great Plains.
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National Identity

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You are a citizen of many different things. You belong to a city and a neighborhood, a state or province, and a nation. The word “citizen” is something like a title in that it implies there are certain rights and privileges that are at your command, in addition to a few obligations to maintain the entity.

More important, however, is that citizenship is an identity. While the various actions required by law or custom only come up once in a while, your kinship is a constantly defining force. You might travel around the world and meet someone who shares a citizenship with you, and there is an instant bond.

But what does any of this mean to the ever increasing number of people who call themselves “global citizens”?

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Dr. King’s Long Road

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“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.“
– The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I want to repeat this piece from five years ago exactly as it was then.  Much is still true, even in this much darker moment of despair.  We have a long road, and we are making progress.  It’s slow, but it is true.  The next generation will definitely do better.

At this time every year we have the same kind of conversation around the dinner table. My kids are growing up in a different world, one even more thoroughly defined by the struggles and triumphs of Dr. King’s generation than mine was.

But as they grow older, they see the work left to do more plainly. It is disheartening and difficult to watch those who once thought that the old black and white news film of dogs and firehoses was a document of a black and white history – a story of races and realities laid bare for history to pass its judgement. Now that they are in school they’ve seen and heard what racism is. The struggle is still alive, and every year more than just black and white.

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For a Bigger America

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The classic American road trip is a great experience for a lot of good reasons. More than the core of great novels and movies, it’s usually a journey of inner discovering and bonding and so much else all at once. At the core, however, is one undeniable lesson – this is a truly vast and amazing nation.

The best measure of how stuck in a rut this nation have become is how much that obvious fact has been forgotten. I promise you that the United States is bigger than you or I can ever possibly imagine. But to listen to today’s media or politics of any kind you’d swear that this nation is weak, fragile, and small.

We need a road trip. Short of that, let’s take one in our minds.

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