Living in the USA, sometimes it is hard to be hopeful about the future of humanity. This week has seen an outpouring of grief over an especially horrific school shooting. That grief will pass soon enough, and similar death tolls on the streets of Chicago or Baltimore will scarcely register in people’s consciousness. In a similar way, we all notice when a Goldman Sachs employee is shot by a mentally sick guy on the subway here in New York, but not really when a black kid is caught in crossfire in the Bronx.
Common theme themes in all of this are sick, angry people and guns. Everywhere in the world has sick, angry people, and the number of them seems to have increased since the start of the pandemic. In many societies those sick people are kept somewhat in check by a suffocating family or community culture. Only in the US do many of them wander around with lethal guns.
There are many aspects of US society that I struggle with, but most of them I can come to accept as a weird compromise or as a legacy of a different time. This is a rich society where you must think twice about calling for an ambulance in case it bankrupts you, and where that same ambulance will be chased by parasitic lawyers. The squalor of deprived areas, so close to districts of showy opulence, is hard to accept. Why can nobody seem to get rid of the potholes? Why is the TV so bad, especially anything trying to be funny?
I can come to terms with all of these. But not about guns. Why would anybody ever want to go anywhere near a gun, except deep in the forest for hunting? Lives are precious, and all guns achieve is to waste them. The idea that if I had a gun, I could somehow be safer is plainly preposterous. So a bad guy enters my house and threatens me. By a miracle my gun is handy, and loaded, and I can remember how to use it and I can shoot the bad guy before he shoots me? Seriously? I am far more likely to shoot myself or my child or goad the bad guy to be reckless, and statistics indeed back up this more realistic hypothesis.
This week’s shooter became eighteen last week and rewarded himself by buying a semi-automatic lethal weapon, entirely legally and without need for license, registration or training. He would have had to wait three more years before legally enjoying a beer. This is madness, yet so broken is the society that nothing will change; indeed the Supreme Court is about to rule that my own state cannot prevent people from wandering the streets with their guns.
Sadly, it is not just a stray bullet that could kill me. On the highway today I will very likely encounter a couple of idiots racing each other, dodging between lanes of traffic. A headline recently pointed out that being shot has overtaken traffic accidents as the leading cause of death among young here. We might conclude that part of the reason was that traffic deaths have decreased. They have a little as car safety standards have improved, but not because of safer driving or safer roads. Road traffic death rates here are about three times those in Europe.
Ah, Europe, the land of milk and honey. Of course things are not perfect there. Racism in the east is endemic. Italy’s economic management is a disaster. Grinding poverty remains in rural Iberia. The Irish nuns still ruin the lives of unmarried pregnant girls. Modern day fascists proliferate in many places. Even the poster children of the north have their issues. Business corruption is endemic in Sweden, Norway produced Brevik, and the Finns are near the top of the table for alcoholic suicide as well as the tables for happiness and educational attainment. Then there is the UK. And then there is Russia.
Yet, despite its frustrating failings, and certainly excluding Russia and perhaps also the UK, I do get a strong sense that Europe is still improving as a place to live, step by gradual step. During the ten years when I lived in the Netherlands, the cities became more liveable in series of small ways that added up to big change. There was a relentless focus on housing and on mental health, and on infrastructure improvements.
In Portugal, I know a small town in the Algarve called Loulé quite well. In 2005, it was a bit of a dump, with many dilapidated houses and streets and obvious poverty. Year by year, the town has found ways to improve for its citizens. With its tourism and expatriation incomes and its access to EU funds, perhaps Loulé is slightly exceptional, but I believe most places in the EU have seen some improvements. This has occurred across many fields, including education of all ages, health provision, hygiene, nutrition, nightlife, the police, housing, civic amenities, elderly care, roads, and culture. In place like Bucharest or Loulé, the difference is stark, but I believe nearly everywhere has found some way to become more liveable.
I can only imagine the sense of improvement that must exist in Asia, and especially in China. That land seems to have crammed a century of development into a decade. Again, the flaws are clear
I simply do not see the same positive trends in the US, though of course there are bright spots, for example pre-school provision in New York. The city is still filthy, and many people seem determined to make that worse. The roads are still terrible, and the standard of driving has deteriorated. Public schools are depressing, more like jails than places for joy and development. More people are getting fatter and lazier, even in New York. Homelessness and housing are major problems. The police are rude and seem to ignore most issues. All sorts of anti-social and destructive behaviour is justified by a concept of liberty that seems to mean doing whatever one damn well likes irrespective of the impact on others.
Reading the US section of The Economist each week, it is easy to diagnose the root causes of the problems and hard to avoid the conclusion that nothing will improve any time soon. Congress is broken, and the public discourse is more about abortion or historical racism or critical race theory or ludicrous conspiracies or religious cults than about anything that might improve the lives of citizens. Speaking to Americans, a culture of complacent insularity still pertains, full of claims of superiority and a lack of curiosity about other societies that might have something to teach.
On the many days when this depressing picture comes to the fore in my mind, I conclude that it is time for me to move back to Europe. But that feels like running away and as an insult to the many Americans striving to make lives better, including mine. Furthermore, one of our children has chosen to build a life here. So I try to counteract despair and an urge to flee with feelings of hope. Luckily, these are always possible to find, and usually by looking to the young.
Last week I attended a pair of graduations. The US does this type of ceremony very well, replete with English and Scottish music and plenty of pomp. But my overriding impression of the occasion came from the young people who were graduating. They were incredibly diverse, yet fully respectful of each other, society and even the planet. They were humble, curious, and full of smart ideas. Then on Saturday I performed with the group I call my Broadway choir, full of energy and youth as well as social awareness.
Now I am keenly aware that these privileged subsets do not represent the full picture. But they fill me with hope, nonetheless. Surely that generation will find ways through the political impasse and use its diversity to reduce the damaging insularity that pervades America. The sooner the baton is passed to these people, the better for all of us.
And here is an even more hopeful thought. The youth of the USA, albeit the elite youth, have become an impressive generation despite the many societal failings holding them back. So what about the youth of the EU, who have surely benefited from the many positive improvements that are so evident to me. How impressive will I find these young people be, once I have a chance to interact with more of them after next year?
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