Compare and Contrast

After listening to superintendent, principal, education board directors and just walking around watching and listening to people at a high school graduation, I got the feeling that people are just trying to manage lives and situations, not fashioning their society.  I sensed no energy-infused purpose, for themselves or their society. 

I contrasted that with viewing Chinese TV, which, despite its occasional heavy hand of government interference, seems to reflect a society that, despite its deep problems, feels it is going somewhere, that it is making progress, that it is doing things that infuse pride.   Oh, they have problems, deep ones, some of character, but being economically sound gets you breathing room to deal with that.

We Americans get excited about things that divert us, not things that propel us, as individuals or society.  How will Americans react when they wake up down the road to find they are not number 1, maybe not even in the top 5 anymore?