In his 1964 commencement address at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Johnson argued that most of American history had been devoted to “subduing the continent,” and the result of American “unbounded invention and untiring industry” had been “an order of plenty for our people.” As a consequence, he noted, our new goal would be to discover and employ the “wisdom… to enrich and elevate our national life and to advance the quality of American civilization.” Here were the essential elements of the Great Society programs: abundance beyond scarcity and liberty beyond conventional limitations.
Once these goals were achieved, presumably a new nation would be created “where leisure is a welcome place to build and reflect, and not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness,” as well as one “where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.”
In this speech are the undiluted positions of the M and M boys, Marx and Maslow: Marxism as the triumph over scarcity and the “inexorable” march to sharing the fruits of production and Maslow and the search for personal fulfillment and the psychology of contentment.
This speech and these aspirations were delivered two decades before Francis Fukuyama’s famous National Interest article on the “End of History,” yet in many ways it presaged the Fukuyama thesis. A new age was about to be born that transcends the so called permanent features of human nature. Scarcity was to be relegated to the ash heap of history and unbounded liberty would produce the flourishing of culture.
But history has a curious way of insinuating itself into this idealistic equation. What is to be done if the “permanent features of human nature” cannot be transcended? Suppose scarcity reappears in the form of a financial breakdown. And suppose as well that liberty is challenged by a new, virulent form of totalitarianism that has an accompanying religious fervor.
The new millennium has reawakened a somnolent historical beast. A defeated Soviet Union has been restored as an active imperial power eager to regain the “near-abroad,” those nations once within its orbit. Communism may be dead, but the lust for power is very much in the ascendancy.
China, once the sleeping giant of Asia, has awakened and is flexing its economic strength and military muscle in regional matters from the Taiwan Strait to the Sea of Japan.
Islam, flush with petrodollars and a belief that the West is in retreat weakened by its debauched culture, is challenging for global hegemony. For radical Islamists the seventh century has returned along with dreams of caliphates from Madrid to Jakarta.
And then there is the collapse of American credit markets roiled by politicians who believe nirvana in the form of home ownership could be created on the basis uncollateralized mortgages. These pollyannas were joined by greedy Wall Street brokers who saw sugar plums in mortgage –back securities underwritten on exotic dreams. With the collapse of the credit market came the inevitable reintroduction of historical reality for many Americans.
Scarcity has not disappeared. Moreover, for many, the unconstrained life has discovered constraints. All at once America has been forced to consider bourgeois virtues of sobriety, delayed gratification, hard work, and resourcefulness. Easy money is easily evaporated.
Not only has visions of abundance been challenged, but the self indulgence associated with the generational pursuit of “finding oneself,” is now a luxury many can no longer afford. Trust fund investments are starting to recede.
Clearly these conditions may be temporary. History may also recede in time. But I believe the permanent conditions of human nature are indeed permanent. We may choose to ignore them because they are inconvenient or inconsistent with our dreams, but they have a way of reappearing.
It is wise to consider our collective hubris. Like Icarus we may soar for a time, but when we get too close to the sun our wings of wax melt and we will come crashing back to earth. History speaks with a certain inevitability always sensitive to human nature and instincts.
Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001) and America's Secular Challenge (Encounter Books).
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