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That brings us to my conclusion, which is based in the need for a re–
iteration of the tragic optimism I earlier described as basic to our social
contract, the form through which we do our best against folly, corrup–
tion, mediocrity, and incompetence. I believe the reiteration of that
attitude is the mark to which our politicians have to rise.
In
what George
Will calls "our therapeutic culture," reiterating that vision is far from easy
to do, primarily because we believe that either through humiliating our–
selves publicly or giving vent to our "true feelings," we will be on the
road to health, or at least on the way to the pharmacy with the right pre–
scription. The various strains of anger and xenophobia that we find in just
about every place we travel to in our land are not unreal; they are mis–
guided and they are vented either loudly or in whispers. Many of these
strains are the results of having been given the impression that, some day,
life was going to be a crystal stair leading to some sort of utopia, another
point Robert
J.
Samuelson makes. But the conception of a utopia is a
conception that has no time for tragic facts and is a revolt against the
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harsh and unpredictable nature of the world. On one front we are sus-
ceptible to utopian thinking because our quite successful handling of so
I
many threats to our lives has reduced a good number of the kinds of
deaths that were commonplace before the arrival of penicillin and other
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"wonder drugs." These developments in modernization have encouraged
us to follow whomever will most passionately guarantee that we will
make it toHeaven on earth. Heaven, of course, is nowhere to be found.
We just happen to have gotten closer as a nation than any other country
in history.
I do not believe that we can handle our problems of race, class, sex,
the environment, and so on until we accept our limitations and under–
stand that there are problems that will not be solved at the same velocity
that information presently travels through our technology. As Senator
Moynihan said a few years ago about our social ills, "It took us thirty
years to get into this mess and it'll probably take us about thirty years to
get out of it. " We should take heed of his observation, however daunting
it might seem to those in a rush to get every crimp immediately straight-
ened. The story of life is always the tale of the journey from a revelatory
conception to the execution of the idea, which may be short this time,
long the next. Weare in a time when we have to redefine our aspirations
and discover when our discontents are rational and when they are not.
It
is perhaps most necessary that we have leaders, regardless of party, re-
gardless of right, middle, or left, who have the patience and the courage
and the eloquence to come forward with a convincing sense of humanity,
allowing us to acknowledge ourselves not only as what we are but as
what we can be. Such leadership, from the local to the national level,
