During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, President Joe Biden was making his farewell speech. In part, he said, “Years ago everybody was talking about how China would overtake America as the world’s superpower, but today, nobody talks about it.” America’s greatness, he implied, is unchallengeable. Only several weeks previously, to give ourselves a dramatic demonstration of America’s greatness at the Paris Olympics, we won 125 medals compared to second place China’s 91, which has five times America’s population.

Aside from the medal counts, how else do we lead the world? We can easily point to three main fields: wealth, the military and science (and technology).

Our dominance in wealth, science and the military is so prominent that we take it for granted. Our economy dominates the world. Our superiority in science is so great that the world sends its best to America’s superior graduate schools to study science. Our military’s fighting ability is so awe-inspiring that no nation on earth can even contemplate a war with the U.S.

However, such great strengths are all physical and material. Internally, as a people and a society, we are on the verge of total collapse: Spiritually, we are morally corrupt, with no trust, no love and no inner strength as human beings and citizens among ourselves; virtually every American is on some kind of drugs to boost their sagging morals and suffers some mental affliction, unable to survive a day without hourly entertainment lined up to fill their empty hearts; and we have the shortest lifespan among the world’s advanced nations.

How do we stay the world’s sole superpower in money-making business, military power and science while our social life is falling apart?

Don’t these enterprises require high-level intelligence, creativity and unity of purpose? Not really. They are all children’s games, hardly more “civilized” or “advanced” from the cavemen’s days.

Consider the game of money, also called “economics.” After all, children and cavemen play the game of who is going to collect more pebbles and bones and toys than their peers. Moneymaking is essentially the same kind of games and plays in which primitive minds and children can easily engage. You cheat, outsmart and outplay your peers to get more pebbles, bones and toys in win-lose simplicity of choice. The very nature of moneymaking has never changed since its cave origins. Hence only the most simple-minded people choose moneymaking or economics as their lifetime goal.

Consider America’s military: Our military, with its vastly more technologically advanced ways, still does what the cavemen did eons ago with sticks and stones: They kill their enemies or defend themselves from their enemies. Long-distance missiles replace sticks and stones (although hand-to-hand combat is still practiced), but the purpose and process remain just the same. Children play war games but never philosophy or art games.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Two dogs, three cats killed in Orange fire

Leyden house fire reignites on Monday

PHOTOS: Hundreds participate in ‘Hands Off!’ standouts across Franklin County

Plans to move Northfield EMS to Bernardston property fall through

Shelburne Selectboard determines police detective will retain job

Bulletin Board: Greenfield's Savannah Thomas wins Knights of Columbus Hoop Shoot state title

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

Then, there is the matter of science, which spawns technology and industry in its myriad practical applications. But what is science? In spite of its complicated mathematics and computers, in essence science is just play on nature. If you mix x, y and z and you get gun powder, or do 1, 2 and 3 and you get nuclear bombs. Even with its awesome complexity, science still plays with the same nature of our cave ancestors did. All scientists are cavemen-children with natural curiosity to explore the next steps. During COVID, medical scientists told us about a little invisible bug and what we could do to squash it — essentially a child’s concept of the world and its nature. We worship science but we don’t let it choose our presidents or our spouses or who is guilty or innocent or which god to worship. Only simplest things, like bugs and bombs, are assigned to science and scientists.

Yes, we lead the world in moneymaking, war-fighting and science games and appear mighty strong (including the medal counts). But, for something like art, you still look to France; for music and philosophy, to Germany; for literature, to England; for ballet, to Russia; for peace of mind, to Tibet; for social harmony, to Japan. What do they look to the U.S. for? Maybe for mass marketing? Maybe for Disneyworld?

Originally, for its endearing fame as “the City on a Hill,” America was chosen for something quite different: blessed to be the world’s first truly open society where all would be equal and free. For this task, providence endowed America with two extraordinary gifts:

First, the gift of external peace and abundance: A landmass surrounded by two large oceans on both sides and by two friendly nations on both ends, along our temperate climate that can grow grains and raise livestock virtually everywhere all year round.

Then, the uniquely historical gift for a fresh start in the New World as a beacon of hope for the suffering humanity: No other nation on earth ever began its career this free and this promising.

But we ruined it with capitalism which turned this “perfect union” in second Eden into a children’s playground guarded and sustained only by its money, guns and machines.

Most of our life functions in America today, including the military, are digitalized, specialized, and systematized, requiring minimal human creativity or freedom. Our jobs train us mostly by simplification and repetition. While our institutional complexity is managed by the few best-and-brightest, our ordinary everyday functions — from job performance to consumer habits – are quite primitive in pursuit of endless comfort and fun: As most service-sector functions (most common jobs today) are performed by minimally human workers, namely us, waiting to be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.