We need to unite to rebuild civic virtue

As we enter the New Year, one thing — perhaps only one thing — is certain: We are not going back to our lives as they were before 2020. The world has become a far less stable and far less predictable place.

It’s not just the turmoil and bewilderment of living for two years with an active disease. The COVID crisis has radically accelerated the adoption of new technologies. While many of them quickly became routine — consider that it has taken only 15 years for half the people in the world to carry a smartphone — with COVID, the range and scope of technological change has radically accelerated. As has our dependency on these innovations.

We now confront a changing world of business and work. We work from home, we shop remotely and we communicate via Zoom. Technology and digitalization grow ever more dominant. Note that Apple alone is worth $3 trillion. That represents considerable power and influence.

The current twin health and economic crises are a warning that U.S. institutions and systems leave us ill-prepared to deal with the large-scale challenges that we now face. These include COVID and its wide-ranging impact, inflation, a public debt of $29 trillion, climate change, illegal immigration, less globalism and more nationalism, political and cultural polarization, Donald Trump’s dominance over the Republican Party and the growing denial of previously understood American democratic norms, and a dysfunctional Congress.

Most important of these challenges is the fracturing of American democracy and self-government. All the traditional rules and precedents that define our public institutions and democratic and scientific processes have been overwhelmed by uncompromising politics.

Science and the COVID response have fallen victim. As have the news and social media. Previously accepted standards have fallen by the wayside.

In an information society, we are drowning in information and yet, are starved for knowledge and understanding. Traditional norms of accuracy and authority — whether in science or in daily news — are lacking.

Too many Americans are anxious, disoriented and angry. This is no more apparent than in some of America’s greatest cities, where random murders, street gang activities, and “smash and grab” incidents are increasing.

The current American secular upheaval is calling into question whether we have turned inward, fallen prey to nativism and are surrendering our 70-year role as leader of the free world. We now face the challenge of China’s enormous economic clout and its calculated geopolitical maneuvering. China is moving up the power scale and we are moving down.

We need to coalesce to rebuild our country and unite to reverse counterproductive trends and shore up the erosion of civic virtue. The United States is an invented nation. It can reinvent itself. In the past this nation has shown great talent for adaptation, flexibility and dynamism.

We still possess a rare capacity to innovate, to adapt and to transform. We must, however, recognize both the challenges and promise of our advancing technologies and our shared culture. We are capable, once again, of forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare — thereby securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and posterity.