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To the Class of '64, let's hope our grandkids do better than we did
To the Class of ’64, let’s hope our grandkids do better than we didRobert Kaiser, Washington Post, May 25, 2024
Robert G. Kaiser is a former managing editor of The Post who worked for the paper for 50 years. He was asked to write an essay to mark the 60th reunion of the Yale Class of 1964.
...
We’ve lived through amazing changes in our 80-plus years, but the next 80 years will surely produce even more profound changes around this deteriorating planet. America will be reconfigured demographically, and much will be transformed by new technologies. Most compelling may be the need to adapt to a radically changing climate. Adjusting to a world where machines may be smarter than human beings will also be an enormous challenge, as will the constant need to resist using thermonuclear weapons.
The world’s inability to establish a global regime to control nuclear weapons and discourage their proliferation after 1945 is one of humanity’s many failures in the lives of the Class of ’64. Frankly, we don’t have a great deal to be proud of. We had our turn at running the world, and our record stinks. Born into the world of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, we are leaving to our heirs and assigns a world that featured Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, a veritable clown show.
But the picture is never clear or consistent. Our time and the future will share an important characteristic that has been part of every era of American history. Past, present and future have been or will be riddled with contradictions. The earliest version of the United States featured Washington, Jefferson and Madison — and human slavery. Those three godlike Founders bought, sold and exploited other human beings, yet with straight faces declared that all men were created equal.
Uplifting moments have jostled with depressing ones throughout American history. It has never been easy to make sharp distinctions between good times and bad, and it probably won’t be in the future, unless our descendants really do burn up the planet or Trump and his cult really do destroy American democracy. If someone had told us in 1964 that these disasters would both become realistic possibilities in our lifetimes, who would have believed it?
We’ve lived through amazing changes in our 80-plus years, but the next 80 years will surely produce even more profound changes around this deteriorating planet. America will be reconfigured demographically, and much will be transformed by new technologies. Most compelling may be the need to adapt to a radically changing climate. Adjusting to a world where machines may be smarter than human beings will also be an enormous challenge, as will the constant need to resist using thermonuclear weapons.
The world’s inability to establish a global regime to control nuclear weapons and discourage their proliferation after 1945 is one of humanity’s many failures in the lives of the Class of ’64. Frankly, we don’t have a great deal to be proud of. We had our turn at running the world, and our record stinks. Born into the world of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, we are leaving to our heirs and assigns a world that featured Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, a veritable clown show.
But the picture is never clear or consistent. Our time and the future will share an important characteristic that has been part of every era of American history. Past, present and future have been or will be riddled with contradictions. The earliest version of the United States featured Washington, Jefferson and Madison — and human slavery. Those three godlike Founders bought, sold and exploited other human beings, yet with straight faces declared that all men were created equal.
Uplifting moments have jostled with depressing ones throughout American history. It has never been easy to make sharp distinctions between good times and bad, and it probably won’t be in the future, unless our descendants really do burn up the planet or Trump and his cult really do destroy American democracy. If someone had told us in 1964 that these disasters would both become realistic possibilities in our lifetimes, who would have believed it?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/25/yale-class-1964-reunion-message/
Gifted, no paywall: https://wapo.st/3wY4XCU