tl;dr: a short reflection on American values.

There’s a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the United States of America these days.

And it’s understandable.

Trust in Freefall

Way back in March 2017 when I gave a keynote at Microsoft’s CIO Summit, it was entitled “Understanding the Age of Blockchains.”

The thesis then, as it is now, was that Trust was collapsing in all types of traditional, centralized institutions for a variety of reasons.

Over the years, I’ve been calling it the “Declining Trust Hypothesis,” but that’s just my effort to sound like I am a sophisticate.

Into that void, blockchains, with trust in math versus people, could provide a superior and alternative value proposition since, without trust, we’re in really bad shape.

And now I get another mini ego boost, since my friend, Jacob, recently sent me an article from the Atlantic by David Brooks entitled, America Is Having a Moral Convulsion. Though honestly, I’d prefer to be wrong.

The subtitle tells it all:

Levels of trust in this country—in our institutions, in our politics, and in one another—are in precipitous decline. And when social trust collapses, nations fail. Can we get it back before it’s too late?

Brooks is fairly grim about the outlook.

Which is really sad because the American story/myth that I grew up on can be encapsulated in the movie, Saving Private Ryan.

The Heroism of D-Day

I’ve been to the beaches of Normandy and I had a difficult time walking on them-and no one was shooting at me.

So, when I think what it must have been like to land on June 6, 1944, I can’t even begin to fathom the bravery, courage, resolve, and fortitude that it took to storm the beaches.

And then I think about the macro-context…that America was fully committed to liberating the world from tyranny.

I don’t mind when Europeans take potshots about Americans for all kinds of legitimate reasons, but I do mind when there’s zero sense of gratitude that, were it not for America’s unique commitment to freedom, they would be living in a very different world.

And to think about the lives lost, at age 18, 19, 20, it’s just heartbreaking…but that’s the Thomas Jefferson quote.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tree-liberty-quotation

Normandy is where the tree of liberty was refreshed.

When Any Life Matters

And yet, it is the beauty of America in the micro story of that day which (and I am NOT implying a political endorsement here) truly makes America great.

The very idea that, in the middle of a war of this magnitude, the Army would devote resources to save one specific soldier so that his entire family would not get wiped out…that is something that just doesn’t happen in totalitarian regimes, where individuals don’t matter.

Maybe the period we are going through now is merely the tree of liberty getting refreshed and America can emerge stronger and better than before.

I sure hope so, for the sake of the world, because a country that saves Private Ryan can save the world.

Let’s hope we can be that country for a long, long time.

written while listening to Scarlatti by Scott Ross – Harpsichord Sonatas K1 – K99 + Presentation (recording of the Century)