Over the last few decades, Americans have lived through a massive widening of horizons — the Cold War “free world,” globalization, the rise of the internet, and an everyday awareness of life far beyond our borders. It feels like our idea of who “we” are has stretched from 50 states to an audience of 8 billion.
I wonder whether that expanding global consciousness changed how we think about the general welfare at home.
LBJ’s Great Society was built on the idea of one national community taking care of its own. By the 1980s, Reagan talked in terms of a larger “free world” — a moral circle bigger than any single country. And now the internet places us in a global conversation every day.
My question is simple:
As our sense of “we” has expanded globally, did our willingness to support fellow citizens shrink?
Did the mental shift from 340 million Americans to 8 billion humans make domestic solidarity feel thinner or more complicated?
What do you think?
I wonder whether that expanding global consciousness changed how we think about the general welfare at home.
LBJ’s Great Society was built on the idea of one national community taking care of its own. By the 1980s, Reagan talked in terms of a larger “free world” — a moral circle bigger than any single country. And now the internet places us in a global conversation every day.
My question is simple:
As our sense of “we” has expanded globally, did our willingness to support fellow citizens shrink?
Did the mental shift from 340 million Americans to 8 billion humans make domestic solidarity feel thinner or more complicated?
What do you think?
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