What a World, What a World

The famous last words of the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ were, “What a world, what a world!” Although climate change wasn’t a part of that 1930s fantasy world, she was, like we are today, melting away. The year 2024 is about to end, and we are setting another world record for the hottest planetary year.

Yet, I’ve chosen the wicked witch’s utterance of her unhappy condition to illustrate more broadly “what a world” we are today. My purpose is of genuine concern for the current perilous world situation and the need for a call to action. What best encapsulates my intent is a quote from one of my all-time favorite humorist-columnists of the Washington Post, Art Buchwald. – God rest his soul.

“Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.”

Here are some of the reasons for my angst.

Climate change is certainly one. I know that Highland County is only one part of the U.S. that is experiencing extreme drought, what the weather service calls D4 conditions, the worst. Yet the rest of the U.S. isn’t doing much better. Drought.gov/current-conditions, tells the whole story.

Artificial intelligence is in a frenzy of development for reasons of national security, but also for reasons of financial gain. The problematic consequences of AI for many in the high-tech world are secondary to its potential riches. “Singularity,” the hypothetical point at which technology growth is out of control and irreversible, may not be so hypothetical. Something like the movie “The Matrix” comes to mind.

I also have these reminiscences of my childhood, bicycling the neighborhood with friends and neighbors, hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, touch-football games, softball games, imagination games and adventures into the woods. Today we live in a world where outdoor and playground games are giving way to indoor digital games with mental consequences for young kids and too many adults.

I have this solidifying sense that we live in a world now that rides and thrives digitally, on the internet highway. It now carries most of our communications of the moment, only to sublimate quickly into the ether, but it affects not only our communications but our leisure, our security both at home and nationally, the way we work and where we work. More maliciously, it clouds our perceptions of truth and fact with misinformation and disinformation. Mike Ruddell was quoted in the New York Times as saying that all is not well, “thanks to our obsession/tension with breeding AI, our cultural fixation on anti-hero hackers and leakers, and our destruction of the planet.”

The culturally popular term “brat” says a lot to me about trends and angst. The lingo turns semantics upside down. Today’s “brat” isn’t the spoiled little monster of yesteryear, but instead the cool, carefree, crazy, bold and exceptionally indifferent person. If this is what many utopian-like young people and adults aspire to be, then in a time when we need seriously determined and intentional problem solvers, we may be in a serious deficit situation.

This may sound a bit extreme and apocalyptic, but some pundit once said, “Today is bad, and day by day it’ll get worse – until at last the worst of all arrives.”

I haven’t even broached, as yet, the issue of today’s chaotic politics, a primordial world of cults and tribes. Its effects aren’t just local, but national and international. I just finished a book called “The Demon of Unrest,” by Erik Larson, in which he spends almost 500 pages describing in poignant detail the culture wars that divided our nation and led to the civil war costing us over 600,000 deaths and around 480,000 wounded. That’s more American lives lost than the total lost in WWI, WWII, and Korea. We have a history of being our own worst enemy. Just saying.

And if all these happenstances weren’t enough to challenge our existence, the world seems to be breeding a slew of power-hungry autocrats, some of whom are willing to risk it all to create chaos, undermine democratic institutions, acquire other sovereign nations or just climb to power for wealth and notoriety.

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, spoke to this issue recently in the lead article in the September-October issue of Foreign Affairs, “The Perils of Isolationism.” She cautions us of the “echo chambers of the Internet,” and the new “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse-populism, nativism, isolationism, and protectionism.” She further warns us that the retreat of isolationism “has never been the answer to the United States’ security or prosperity.”

If there is an attitude adjustment that can serve us well as an antidote to these existential challenges, Rice asserts that, “The biggest difference between the first half of the twentieth century and the second half was the fact of Washington’s sustained and purposeful global engagement.”

Let me read into Rice’s declaration that this is no time for “brats,” but rather it’s a time for serious and intentional engagement to these threatening political, cultural, digital or global demons.

“What a world, what a world,” is the anguished cry of a melting witch, wailing over an inevitable deadly outcome. Utopian indifference, dreams of getting rich quick, isolationism and carefree outlooks are not the behavioral antidotes to these mounting global troubles. As the leading constitutional democracy in the world, we have on many occasions taken on the responsibility of working to bring a sense of balanced economic and global security. Today more than ever, we need to squelch these surging demons with purposeful agency and engagement.

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.