There is an old protest song from the 1960s by Buffalo Springfield with the phrase “there’s something happening here, but it is not exactly clear” that is appropriate to the times we find ourselves in today. What is happening today can be classified as modernization and the waves from it are reverberating around the world and in every area of the planet there is a different reaction.
In America we thought with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union and just like the Coke commercial “we’d teach the whole world to sing in perfect harmony” and everyone would learn to speak English, practice democracy and adopt capitalism with worldwide trade. Of course, all this would inure to the benefit of the United States without any pain or disruption to any particular group.
However, we forgot what that great philosopher Dandy Don Meredith said, “if wishes and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a mighty fine Christmas.” Progress and growth bring rewards to some and devastating pain to others. Modernity has helped destroy the rural world, shifted jobs and manufacturing to low-cost countries while losing regimes like Syria and Venezuela have driven millions of their citizens to flee into the rich western countries destabilizing their new countries political equilibrium with massive fear.
The best we can hope for is the patience to let the benefits of modernization slowly trickle through society. However, we need to keep in mind what the cat in love with the skunk said, “I don’t know if this relationship has a future.”
