Last week, I posted a message on Twitter and Facebook. “It’s time to columnize,” I said. “What issue is ripe for enlightenment (or disparagement)?”
My microcosm erupted.
Tristan tweeted to suggest puppy-mill dogs. “More specifically, the view by their breeders that they’re simply goods to be sold.”
Randy suggested a piece on “the insanity” of legislators pushing a gay marriage ban “when the budget crisis looms and schools are in peril in Indiana.”
My nephew, a college sophomore in Michigan, wrote to suggest a piece on the Recording Industry Association of America and its “abuse of the legal system.”
Will, a recent Notre Dame grad, was interested in the uprising in Iran. “Maybe this can serve as a reminder of a sacred right that we take for granted,” Will said.
Shari suggested another global dilemma: “North Korea’s irrational provocations with nuclear missiles and prison sentences for U.S. journalists.”
Several stressed front-end prevention over back-end problems.
Gene, a South Bend school administrator, suggested “investment in social infrastructure, such as education, family health, etc. instead of paying for the consequences on the other side: prisons, financial dysfunction, higher security cost, etc.”
Laura, a Florida elementary school teacher, thought I might consider “how ‘No Child Left Behind’ has managed to leave more children behind than ever before.”
Sheila and Karla suggested national health reform, with Karla adding, “There is no reform in health reform unless there is prevention. And there is no prevention without . . . [ensuring] that patients and clients are advised about tobacco use and secondhand smoke at each and every visit.”
Julie wanted to know whether I’m for or against the Employee Free Choice Act.
Kim, from Connecticut, suggested a piece on the loss of innocence.
Alice was concerned about the impact of our economic malaise on local arts and culture. “What are we losing and are we aware of what the loss means to us?”
John suggested a piece on “how baseball is a metaphor for the country’s ability to come out of a slump.”
Mary Ann, hoping to make me laugh, suggested a piece on “the impact of televised feuds ala Jon Stewart and Joe Scarborough or, egad, David Letterman and that woman.”
And Nick suggested I delve into “our growing entitlement culture.”
I was contemplating all these suggestions when I opened a message from Gabriel in San Juan. He’d sent a 1968 Robert Kennedy quote.
“We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods,” Kennedy said. “We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the gross national product. For the gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highway carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them. The gross national product includes the destruction of the redwoods, and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads . . . It includes the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our country.
“And if the gross national product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of public officials . . . the gross national product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile; and it can tell us everything about America—except whether we are proud to be Americans.”
I was feeling proud not only of America, but also of my worldly American friends—with all the “bigger than me” issues weighing on their minds—when my wife arrived home. She’d been listening to the radio.
“Did you hear what Newt Gingrich said?” she asked.
I hadn’t.
“He said ‘I am not a citizen of the world.’ Can you believe that?”
I Googled “citizen of the world.”
Last July in Berlin, Barack Obama described himself as “a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” In 1982, President Reagan told the United Nations General Assembly, “I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world.”
Yet this month, Newt Gingrich said, “Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous.”
Okay, microcosm, weigh in: Is global citizenship “intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous”? Or does beyond-your-own-borders thinking make you proud to be an American?
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I’ve always had a hard time understanding this kind of nationalism. It’s seems odd to have pride in something I had no choice in. I don’t take pride in my brown hair or the freckle on my right ring finger. Why should the longitude and latitude of my birthplace be any different?
Frankly, I’m more concerned with my own day-to-day personal problems of paying bills, aging and ill in-laws, teenaged sons and a 20-something daughter, and a husband who’s being downsized. Who has time to worry about the rest of the world?! I’ve got more than enough in my own household!
It’s Monday, and therefore time to read Saturday’s Indianapolis Business Journal. My interest was piqued by your column. The scattering of “topics of interest” reflected what I’ve been finding lately, at work and at school where I teach in the MBA program. Everybody is interested in something, but not very many people are interested in the same something any more. Fragmented interest and fragmented communication gone wild. I loved the Kennedy quote, and it reminded me why I dropped out of college for a few months in 1968 to go canvasing neighborhoods from Indianapolis to Omaha.
I was intrigued by your closing challenge about being a citizen of the world. I am one, and proud of it, by the way. Newt’s commentary only reinforced what I already felt about Newt.
Let me tell you a short anecdote.
In May, my wife and I accompanied a group of students from the University of Indianapolis on a spring-term course to Europe. The focus was Berlin and East Germany, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Yes, it HAS been 20 years, this November - but I digress.) We visited the Berlin Zoo, took in the sights and among our stops was the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Well, it was a museum for the students, who didn’t really remember “the wall” — but more of a reminder of a different time for me. I was pleasantly suprised and pleased that the evening dinner conversation that night wasn’t about the beauty of the zoo, the Charlottenburg Palace, the differences in the city and the many old buildings and sights seen, but how the Checkpoint Charlie Museum reminded the students how lucky they were to be Americans, how shocked they were to see what extremes people in the former East Germany went to, to become free.
That, to me, is the answer to your question. Being a citizen of the world is being aware of how lucky we are to be Americans, to see the good and not so good of other countries, and sometimes saying “There but for the Grace of God, (and a lot of effort by a lot of people) go we!”
The interesting question, I think, is not about whether we ARE citizens of the world — a rhetorical question, Newt aside — but rather about how technology has allowed us to participate in that citizenship.
We live-stream Obama’s speech in Berlin. We “twitter” with protesters in Tehran. We see digital pictures of Kuwait posted by U.S. military personnel on their Facebook pages. We follow bloggers from every corner of the world.
As I write this, my daughter, Kendra, is in Honduras, distributing medical supplies to children with diabetes. She has little regard for borders of any kind. Her fellow citizens are like-minded people of many colors, languages, and religious beliefs who want to change the world, one child at a time. Their neighborhood is the Internet.
Kendra, I think, is the face of the new world citizenship.
I’m just glad to know people are concerned with real issues and not the state of Jon and Kate’s marriage.
When I first heard Gingrich’s quote, I googled it to see if it had been unfairly taken out of context. But it doesn’t seem to have been. Which is depressing.
So much of the world’s troubles have been caused precisely by this kind of self-centered jingoism, spouted by people who believe that their nation is superior to all other nations; that … Read Moretheir God is superior to all other Gods; and that their cause is superior to all other causes.
The world has barely been able to survive this kind of thinking in the past. Its best hope for the future rests on the ability of more national leaders to begin looking past their countries’ artificial borders and realize that we all share one home.
Bruce, what a wonderful piece. I had the same reaction as your wife: can you believe he said that? How much more suffering does there need to be because our complete lack of human compassion for people “not of our nation” before we say ENOUGH! Your column says to me: ENOUGH! I for one am saying “ENOUGH” as well. Thanks, Bruce. Can’t wait to hear the reaction!
Bravo, Bruce. Citing Gingrich means he must be important, but all the importance is in his own xenophobic mind. Pass the FRENCH fries, please.
I’d like to think I’m a citizen of the world, as we all should be. We’re all in this together - there’s no place else to go.
I think Gingrich is probably smarter than this, but he has to pander to the people who are left in the GOP, and most of them are certifiable….Most of us who consider ourselves sane have decamped…….
I knew this column would get people thinking–good! We need to be thinking beyond ourselves–last I checked there is only one Earth, so we’ve got to figure out to make a world for everyone and everything.
I’m so glad you decided to share that RFK quote with everyone, as part of your column. It suited the piece well and added just the right impact where it was needed. Awesome piece… again Bruce!
Who cares what Newt Gingrich has to say! It’s so easy to criticize when you have no skin in the game. As Abraham Lincoln said:
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
Last time I checked, there is no other option. I mean really, where will Americans “immigrate” to when the world becomes uninhabitable due to war, pollution, crime, and violence etc? We have no choice but to be Citizens of the World - if we want to have input regarding our future!
The concept of global citizenship was first suggested by Franklin Roosevelt, who said: “We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.” Undoubtedly Newt Gingerich would be just as happy to spurn Roosevelt as President Obama, but his denial of global citizenship is ignorance of a predictable magnitude. Examine just a few indications of Gingrich’s nescience:
- One cannot be a consumer of virtually anything without participating in shared global commerce. Even the most resolute “Buy Americans” cannot avoid foreign-made components and products. Even the microphone that captured Gingrich’s denial was undoubtedly engineered and manufactured outside of the U.S. Trade imbalances notwithstanding, we purchase the products and services of the world, and they purchase ours.
- Like more than 95% of American citizens, I doubt that Mr. Gingrich has much of an indigenous American genetic heritage. Despite the efforts of many like Mr. Gingrich to slam the borders shut on newcomers, we are a nation of immigrants. American geneology and culture are irreversibly products of global citizenship.
- The religious faiths of nearly all Americans, including those professed by Mr. Gingrich, have their origins exclusively outside of the United States and are shared throughout the globe.
Mr. Gingerich and his ilk can deny being members of the global human community ad infinitum, and while many of us might be glad to revoke his global passport, reality prevails.