America peaked with the 1969 moon landing
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I feel an eerie sense of deja vu. Roughly half of our country apparently yearns for some unspecified period in the past when America was great. If I were to identify our national high point, I would pick July 20, 1969 — certainly because putting a human on the moon was a great accomplishment, but also because it marked the peak of America’s leadership and influence in the world.
Consider: Within five years after that historic moon landing, we had experienced Watergate, the first resignation of an American president, an oil embargo and the ignominious retreat from Vietnam. Economically we were a mess, the dollar sharply devalued and the economy embarking on a decadelong bout of stagflation. In late 1974, the Dow Jones Industrial Average touched its ultimate bear market bottom of 577. Malaise filled the air.
Some would argue that the Reagan years were an American renaissance, although I would submit that this was nothing more than a consumer and national spending spree, both fueled by debt. Since then, we have attempted two more rounds of this concerted national disinvestment with similar and more cumulative results. The credit cards are maxed out, but our infrastructure is crumbling.
Where are we now? Record levels of debt and a greater income disparity than the Gilded Age. A lost sense of direction as a nation, caught between the false choices of socialism and petty selfishness. Once the undisputed leader in almost all measures of prosperity and progress, the United States now claims the top spot in any number of undistinguished categories: gun violence, health care costs, prison population, climate denial and, perhaps most ominously, economic inequality.
Are we truly in a long-term decline? Sure, we have made great advances in science and technology, but are we doing anything with it other than staring at our screens, posting endless selfies and making up our own news? Is nostalgia for our past greatness nothing more than the wishful thinking of the old white male hierarchy? (Full disclosure: I’m an old white male, but assume no further.) Let’s not forget that the 1960s were a time of deep social turmoil and division, of ingrained racism and sexism and of foreign misadventures. After 50 years, we have made some progress, but clearly not enough.
I would like to believe that the real nostalgia behind this anniversary is the sweet memory that Americans were once united behind a common goal. Individually, we are doing great things: curing cancer, developing alternative energy sources, cramming ever more computing power into a microchip. But there is a lack of a unified vision for how to focus and apply these many disparate advances. Perhaps this is because we are overly focused on technological advances and don’t recognize the necessity of a corresponding level of social political, and cultural progress.
One hopes that we can find in this fond remembrance of national pride a renewed sense of common purpose.