Sometimes people say “we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t..[do big challenge X]” where x is end smallpox, or feed children, or some similar ambitious but solvable problem.
But I wonder if we could put someone on the moon today? It feels like if we can’t, it’s because of a general loss of confidence, ambition and leadership rather than having the raw skills.
That post-war Kennedy era glow of manifest destiny feels like a long time ago. The tone today is of problems to be managed, resources to be squeezed. The narrative of climate crisis, to take one example, is about make-do-and-mend and doing more with less, rather than beating the problem back with ingenuity and foresight. We’re mitigating, because that’s the best we can hope for.
Maybe this all part of a bigger “Death of the West” narrative, where our inability to feel agency is connected to living in what we’re told is an increasingly debt-riddled, semi-employed gerontocracy where things like social mobility and youth employment feel like they were given up as part of the START II talks. I bet it doesn’t feel like this in India or Brazil.
We can do well, I’m sure, but I’m not sure we believe we can or we’re being told we can. And vicious circles are vicious.
