America’s Story in a Few Blinks
Our history has always had flair, embellishment, and outright lies. All stories serve a purpose. We call those we like legends, and those we don’t propaganda. Edward Bernays would be proud
BLUF
With hindsight we simplify. In the moment, we suck at this. That’s where the techniques of Ralf Dobelli and Alain de Botton come in - sift the substance from the sallacious by thinking about how to summarize events from the last week, month, year, decade, etc.
The catch? Constarints.
You only get a headline, or for the more forgiving a page.
What makes the cut? ✂️
America in a Few Blinks
Chapter 1
On July 4, 1826, Jefferson and Adams died on the same day. Symbolically closing out the first 50-year chapter of our experiment.
That metaphor - experiment - can feel overwrought. It’s not.
Chapter 2
The Compromise of 1877 bookended our most scarred history. Another 50 years of experiments in what it meant to be an American, as defined by whom, from where, fought for what an imperfect whole would stand.
Chapter 3
October 29, 1929, marked the crash. An ignominious end to a 50-year chunk that saw the Gilded Age, Doughboys in Europe, and a rip-roaring era that reared its inflated head into the Depression.
Chapter 4
The next 50 would be unlike anything the last 150 could comprehend. A citizen aged 25 in 1930 would look back at her life in 1980, astounded at the distance.
- WW II brought global devastation unseen since the Plague.
- That same war spurred technological advancements that terrified and mesmerized, and that midwifed the technology assumed away today.
- Our democracy finally opened to all Americans.
- We were crazy enough to strap bold Americans into a controlled bomb that owed its birth to expat Nazis and black American women called computers.
- We also sent young men to die in places that had far less compelling (if any) callings, started the green revolution that saved millions from famine, interfered in the elections of other nations, and made Silicon talk.
Chapter 5
Then we have the most recent 50. The Wall fell, so did the Towers. Most notably, this chapter redefined the fancy word intermediation. Our media became our identity and how we understood the world. Historians will tell you all media does this to some form—agreed. And a difference of degree becomes kind when you realize McLuhan didn’t go far enough—our media not only shaped our messages, but this chapter’s media changed us.
What would you have included? What would you have cut to make space?
Chapter 6?
This superficial sweep contains egregious omissions (obvi). And whatever collage of consequence you construct, I’m struck that what’s been and will be comes down to Us. Those active participants and aggrieved observers participate both through action and inaction in how the next 50 years unfold.
I haven’t done enough in my first 34. That weighs on me. An ever-present sense of inadequacy. A sense that I’m undeserving of my birth’s happenstance.
In response, I started penning notes on America in college.
I occasionally post them here. However, whenever I write, I’m reminded of a high school chant from opposing school that found its way into a Drill Sergeant’s mouth
Don’t talk about it, Be About it.
Roger.
Because I heed the peak-end-bias research, I’ll always give the last word to someone much smarter.
The floor is yours Mr. Douglas
“I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny... Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”