Posted by
Dennis Pemberton on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 9:41:04 PM
In talking about his new book, The Next 100 Years, George Friedman likened the United States to a teenager. We are omnipotent and invincible one moment, then weak and beaten the next. To quote Mr. Friedman, we lack “perspective.” But I think it’s more than that. We are literally teenagers when one looks at the other countries in the world, and while this is a minor weakness, as shown by the lack of perspective, and our manic response to crisis, it is also our greatest strength.
Look at Europe. Old Europe, to quote Donald Rumsfeld. Europeans are the definition of world-weariness; they’ve not only been there, done that, they’ve been there and done that dozens, hundreds of times. They are cynical and moribund, like the decaying denizens of a continent-sized ALF. And like the blue-veined, cane-shaking, whippersnapper-hating residents of the local old folks home, Europeans don’t reproduce.
Or China. China has a continuous history preceding the birth of Jesus by millennia. But the weight of China’s traditional bias in favor of baby boys has collided with the Communists’ one child policy to create a demographic disaster. And Russia is a land of serfs held in bondage by Czars, then by the Communists, now by ex-KGB kleptocrats. Fueled by natural resources,Russian prosperity doesn’t mean that Russia is a land of optimism and opportunity- it just means that the proletariat doesn’t have to stand in line for vodka or abortions.
So yes, we’re teenagers, with the hormones leading us into occasional depression, but generally they impel us not only to reproduce, but to seek, dream, dare, and do. Like teenagers, we may be susceptible to the latest fad (pet rocks, professional soccer, Obama), but we usually come back to center. So thank God (the one the Europeans are too jaded to believe in) we’re immature Americans.