President Biden contends that as a nation and a species we have today arrived at an "inflection point" a favorite phrase of his. Yet even if fully implemented (a doubtful prospect), the Biden program has no chance of curing our present disorders. A warmed over, if pricier, version of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society, it's too timid and too derivative. Progressivism once looked to the future; today, it's stuck in the past.
So, the Biden version of progressivism may ameliorate, but it will never resolve a multi-dimensional crisis fed by soulless materialism, a deepening climate emergency, a perverse addiction to dehumanizing technology, and a bizarre conviction that military power, amassed and endlessly employed, holds the key to stemming the tide of national decline.
With the passage of time, Carter's challenge to define true freedom has become more urgent. Time is short and global disaster looming. Yet arriving at a clearer understanding of what true freedom should entail will require more than simmering. To repurpose a phrase from an earlier era, "burn, baby, burn" may be the order of the day. At least metaphorically, identifying an antidote to our own malaise might begin not with reducing the heat, but turning it up.
Copyright 2021 Andrew Bacevich
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