Idealism In The World

I have always been fascinated with the assumption that we create our own personal realities by the nature of the thoughts we keep, and that en mass we create the events in our greater reality, based on those thoughts. Whether we consciously own them or disown them, or are unconscious of them, our thoughts about the nature of reality are apparently played out on the world’s stage. The turn of events where a revolutionary election in America has given the mandate of the highest office of the land to an unlikely candidate, is the topic of exploration for this post on idealism.

Looking at the events that have taken place during the term of the present US presidential administration, we see how the stage has been set for a radical change in our idealism and consequently a president elect with the qualities and values more in alignment with that change. We see how a perverted idealism with an intention to defend our security has had a disastrous outcome. We took a risk where we felt justified in retribution, no matter what the cost to ourselves or others.

Beginning with the events of 9/11 we came together in our communities with a sense of vulnerability and deep fear  for our basic security. It could have been a major turning point in world politics to work at healing the root cause of what engendered such a catastrophic event; a horrendous act of violence being played out by a group of deluded perpetrators on a whole nation, that sent shock-waves worldwide. Instead, what happened was, as a world community we carried on “business as usual.” The president of America told people to go shopping, distract themselves, and now we have an economic meltdown because we went to town and shopped until we dropped. Of course this is an exaggeration of what caused the economic crisis that we are in.

The other effect of the aftermath of 9/11 was that a lot of us felt that the people who brought this pain upon us needed to be punished. This punishment has affected not only the supposed perpetrators but also ourselves in the form of economic havoc. We went into two wars and even with the death and casualties of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and soldiers, the punishment is still happening more than five years later. It is ironic that the very people who uphold pro-life values are convinced of the righteousness of killing in war and the need to continue to a victorious end. We responded to fanaticism with our perverted idealism, another form of fanaticism. This perverted idealism ends in more killing and a perpetuated cycle of estranged relations.

The events of the last eight years have supposedly brought a sobering outlook on a mass level. We projected our group idealism on to a charismatic young leader who despite the odds against him, had the audacity to hope to be elected for the office of the commander in chief, of one of the most powerful nations on earth. As a nation, the people of America have expressed their desire for radical change in the choice of the president elect, Senator Obama. The new idealism that is symbolized in Senator Obama is not unlike Spock’s in Star Trek: “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or of the one.” In his victory speech on the night of the election, Senator Obama spoke the words representative of this new idealism:

“….This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.”