I recently had my fortune predicted by a cookie from the Chinese restaurant near my home. Normally, I don't put a lot faith into these predictions, but this one was different. "The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next." The "fortune" is actually a quote from Henry Ward Beecher (brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe.) Maybe he was right, though in some areas it may take more than a single century for common sense to catch up to philosophy.
I can only hope that he was right for all of our sakes. It's been much too long since philosophies of equality and fairness have been espoused and the progress towards their acceptance as common sense has been slower than many would've imagined. But I see more and more expositions of the failures of our current common sense as well as more reiterations of the need for fairness and balance in our dealings with each other and our environment.
Perhaps some common sense in the next century can be achieved (although I wish it wouldn't take so long, since I'd like to be alive to see it), but it is hard to visualize, and there is little evidence to support this. Power is rarely given freely, it must be demanded, insisted upon, and often taken from those who possess and wield it. I'll believe that change, real change, is coming when I see the powerless (who aren't truly so, but believe themselves to be) empowering themselves through action and education. These are immediate steps we can all take to make today's dreams come true (even if it is in a future we may never see.)
No comments:
Post a Comment