Are We Moving Ahead -- or Heading Back?

By Sara Robinson

Created 10/15/2008 - 4:07pm

Our fellow Americans, at long last, are getting it. Not only is the Age of Reagan over; it's becoming increasingly clear that the entire post-WWII order has come to the end of its run. The world as we have known it is passing away; and with it, so does our ability to put much faith in the future. Everywhere you go these days, the discussion ultimately comes down the underlying uncertainty: So...that happened. Now: what comes next?

In the futures biz, we call this a discontinuity -- the place where one long-standing set of trends comes crashing down (and with them, the power bases and institutions that were built on those once-solid assumptions); and a whole new future under a completely different set of rules and assumptions becomes possible. A lot of the debate that's being hashed out in blog comments and over dinner tables around the country has to do with whether this moment is an unraveling that will end with America as a backward, insular, second-rate nation; or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move forward toward a new and better way of life. We're increasingly aware that the choices we make now will set in place the trends and rules that govern the next era; and we feel the eyes of our grandchildren on us as we try to make the right ones.