Americans cannot accept - at a political, religious, and emotional level - five things history can't change:
1. Melting ice caps. Important forces in the United States - primarily within the Republican Party - argue that global warming is a liberal shuck. Yet that polar ice caps are melting at a significant, irreversible rate is irrefutable. To own up to permanent global climate change is to acknowledge our mortality, the tragic legacy we are leaving our children, and that our luxurious lifestyles must end. (Al Gore can't face this, using his new wealth to buy an unconscionable mansion.)
2. The end of American hegemony. The Iraq War is the last gasp of the concept that we can do what we want - the rest of the world be damned. Our attitude towards the Moslem world et al. is only one piece in our declining dominance. Our status as a debtor nation is another, leading to the first sustained reduction in standard of living in our history. We can't face that our children will be worse-off than we were, and we can never tilt away from Israel and towards the Islamic world.
3. Gay marriage. One major party has as a basic tenet its opposition to the inevitable acceptance of homosexuality. Like abortion, prayer in schools, etc., conservative religious forces will fight this as long as we live. Unlike these other things, personal sexuality is Constitutionally protected and is accepted by young people. In 10-20 years, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney will be viewed like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. We can't face that, here, religion has been bested.
4. America's drug culture. As one of PT's leading bloggers constantly argues, Americans love drugs and cannot live without them. Yet Americans refuse to accept their love of and dependence on mind-altering drugs of both the licit and illicit varieties. To do so would require that we permanently change our self-concept to one as a nation of addicted people, a process that is already well in place.
5. Youthful sex. A recent study by the CDC revealed that one in four teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease! The average age of initiation of sex is now between 14 and 15. According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, Young people "hit puberty around 13 and many don't get married until they're past 30. That's two decades of coupling, uncoupling, hooking up, relationships and shopping around. . . . It's a sprawling life stage, and nobody knows the rules." And no amount of campus virginity clubs is going to change this reality.
America will continue to be the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world for as long as I live (thank God), and perhaps as long as my children - but not my grandchildren - live. We can continue to struggle with these issues and many young people - but fewer all the time - will avoid addiction to find pleasure and meaning in life. But we will be in a permanent state of unease as our external and internal worlds unravel in ways our culture - no culture - can ever fully grasp.
