I was just reading the transcript from a 1988 interview, in which Bill Moyers talks with the historian Barbara Tuchman. Several things stood out in terms of trying to understand the world of today.

In the beginning of the interview, Tuchman laments the lack of vision in the world of 1988. She says that people are not roused into action by the desire to stop something (a negative goal) as much as they are by trying to move toward an inspiring vision of a better future (a positive goal).

This makes intuitive sense. However, the conservative party seems to have been very motivated to stop what they saw as the Obama/Liberal agenda and, “drain the swamp.” And the liberals now seem very motivated to stop the Trump conservatives. Is either party motivated to a great degree by a positive goal or a vision for the future?

This is a question worth thinking about while watching or reading the news.

What is the vision of each party? Are there any other visions outside of these parties? And is there any way to combine the visions, meaning, can we create a unifying, non-partisan vision for the future of the United States?

Tuchman goes on to describe the fallen morals of a society and how moral failure is to blame when some great societies have failed. I’m generally wary of any argument that states the world had once been a better, simpler, safer place and its decline is due to some decline in morals. Later, she wonders if people have just become complacent about things and have accepted the world as it is. She talks about George Washington and draws on him for inspiration, especially that he just kept moving forward to his vision, even in the face of great odds. He did not become complacent.

This idea of complacency seems closer to reality than any lack of morals. The world is full of wonderfully moral people who try, with every inch of their being, to do the right thing. However, there can be an overwhelming sense of pessimism, that one person changing their behavior cannot make any difference in the grand scheme. I have suffered from this pessimism myself. The access to news around the globe has never been greater, and with it, can come that pessimism and complacency.

Tuchman is saying that George Washington would not let this deter him, because he had a vision of a better future. She even quotes William the Silent of the Netherlands who said something like, “it is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere.”

So, what is our vision? What is the better we want to bring to the world, aside from the wrongs that we want to stop? And can we persevere, even at times without hope, toward that vision together?

(Interestingly, Tuchman, in a bit of 1988 prescience, says that with the increasing reliance on fundraising in the political system, that Americans will soon have entertainers in office, rather than people who know what they are doing. Some of this surely stems from having Ronald Reagan as President at that time, but it seems she was also predicting the rise of a Donald Trump-like character. Twenty years early.)