The road to perdition

To the editor:

With Jimmy Carter’s passing, our nation and the world are rightfully reflecting upon his legacy.  A thoroughly decent and honest man, Carter did all he could to support his fellow man from building shelter to curing disease. Often overlooked was Carter’s wisdom.

On July 15, 1979, he demonstrated that wisdom in a national address often called “The Crisis of Confidence.” While most of the half-hour address focused on energy policy, a short section, about a thousand words, concisely identified a growing problem in America.  

As Carter put it, “erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.” He warned us that we have lost faith in each other and our country. Greed, self-interest, civic disengagement and over-consumption were conspiring to tear us apart.

Carter cited a “growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions,” calling it “the truth and … a warning.” Insightfully, he identified the cause of this national malady, trauma. The trauma of political assassinations, our defeat in Vietnam and Watergate. Carter said the nation was at a “at a turning point.” We could either change course or continue down the “path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.”

We didn’t listen. We continued down the road to perdition and the traumas have piled on — 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, mass shootings, the Great Recession, police killings of unarmed people of color — as has our fragmentation, self-interest, political chaos and immobility. 

 Joseph Cannisi