I am currently reading Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, © 2005. In it, Friedman explores the forces that have changed and continue to force change in the world of business, and by extension, in every aspect of our lives and the lives of people the world over.
The book is 571 pages in length, and every page is packed with vital information about this multi-faceted, extremely complex, and critically important subject. Whether America is able to maintain its position as the world-leader in innovation and economic stability will depend on our willingness to accept and adapt to the realities of what Friedman calls the flat world, that is, a world in which technology enables people anywhere on the globe to communicate and collaborate with each other in real time to tackle and master complex projects and in the process offer the possibility of a higher standard of living for all.
Writing in 2004, Friedman summed up the secret of America's success in the world thus far in a single word: trust - trust by the rest of the world in the stability and integrity of America's legal, economic, educational, communications, and labor systems.
Friedman ends chapter 7 this way:
Friedman ends chapter 7 this way:
Put all the above together and you have America's secret sauce – a mix of institutions, laws, and cultural norms that produce a level of trust, innovation, and collaboration that has enabled us to constantly renew our economy and raise our standard of living. There is nothing about the flat world – nothing – that Americans cannot handle, as long as we roll up our sleeves, educate our young people the right way for these times, and tend to and enrich the secrets of our sauce. So are we doing that? That's what the next two chapters are about. But let me give you a hint: The answer is no.He begins chapter 8, entitled The Quiet Crisis with these two quotes:
Close games for the Americans were rare in previous Olympics, but now it appears to be something the Americans should get used to.
–– From an August 17, 2004 AP article from the Athens Olympics titled "U.S. Men's Basketball Team Narrowly Beats Greece"
Chinese pity comes from their belief that we are a country in decline. More than a few Chinese friends have quoted to me the proverb fu bu guo san dai (wealth doesn't make it past three generations) as they wonder how we became so ill-disciplined, distracted and dissolute. The fury surrounding Monica-gate seemed an incomprehensible waste of time to a nation whose emperors were supplied with thousands of concubines. Chinese are equally astonished that Americans are allowing themselves to drown in debt and under-fund public schools while the media focus on fights over feeding tubes, displays of the Ten Commandments and how to eat as much as we can without getting fat.
–– James McGregor, a journalist-turned-businessman based in China, and a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, writing in The Washington Post, July 31, 2005.
Friedman uses the first quote as the starting point for a discussion of how the world has changed (flattened) to the point where American dominance in sports is no longer a given. He then extends the argument to other areas.
As for the second quote, sitting at my computer in 2014 and comparing the comments by James McGregor about Monica-gate, fights over feeding tubes, and displays of the Ten Commandments with the content of current news stories and reports on American life, I must come to the conclusion that Friedman's hint at the end of chapter 7 was not only accurate, but prescient.
The very fabric of the institutions which have earned America the trust of the rest of the world are under attack, not from without, but from within.
The very fabric of the institutions which have earned America the trust of the rest of the world are under attack, not from without, but from within.
Consider the following examples of how America is being dumbed down:
1. commercials like this one currently running for for a health product. It begins with this completely meaningless string of words: "Research shows that cell health plays a key role throughout our lives."
Does any intelligent person actually require research to understand that the health of the cells that make up their bodies is important? Yet, this is the kind of verbal garbage we are exposed to hundreds of times a day on television.
2. Time Magazine reports: 1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun
4. A video of Representative Paul Broun (R-GA), a medical doctor and a ranking member of the House Science Committee, explaining to an audience that science is "lies from the pit of hell."
Finally, right-wing politicians have been telling Americans for over thirty years that they cannot and should not trust their government and that "government is the problem." And they do this as they run to become members of Congress and even President.
If Americans choose to turn their government and their education system over to those promoting ignorance and mistrust, America will have little chance to maintain its position of leadership in the new, flattened world,
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