Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

PLANTING THE SEEDS (9/5)

Idealism is a strange fish. It often swims in toxic waters and comes before its time. Nation states lasted well and created wealth as ships began exploring the Seven Seas. Scientific discoveries and industrialization brought about a new world, a new type of efficiency and new ways to prosper. Nation states mastered the globe, spread their languages and culture and used the resources of the world to create wealth and a better world for more people. Humankind prospered. Old societies were swept aside. Those who drove this process forward were predominantly white skinned. Those who had to cope with its impact were not.

This is where we are now. What has changed is that all that knowledge, expertise, understanding is out of the box and is now the purview of all mankind whatever their race. Now that we can exchange ideas globally by the press of a button on a computer nobody has a monopoly any more. And this is progress. The ability to control a whole society because you control access to an idea or the technology is gone. The genii are out of the bottle. And this is a good. Those who resist it like those who resisted books, or learning, or like King Canute trying to tell the tide to go back are merely trying to hang on to a lost world that made them feel secure. Young people over the globe of whatever background are learning quickly. Look at Hong Kong. The educated young are fighting for their future and their right to control their lives. The word is out. You will not hold them back.

Where does that leave us here in America? White people who led the charge into the 20th Century feel under threat. Their sense of control is slipping. They feel that the living standards they and their parents have worked so hard for are under threat. They look desperately for the cause of their sudden lack of progress and see the "rest of the world." They want to fight back, preserve what they have fought for, what they have built, little realizing that what they want is what the rest of the world wants. Their attitude is that of the Roman Empire as it fell. The invaders must be resisted. The irony is that we actually taught the invaders what they wanted, good jobs, good housing, freedom, a fair legal system and hope for their children and that's why they come in numbers. Instead of welcoming them, white people are throwing up walls, stock-piling guns, bolstering the judicial system against foreigners, arming themselves to resist, making it as difficult for immigrants as they can.