02/09/2026
Today there are endless opportunities for personal expression. The world is crying for wisdom, leadership, and active concern.
Never before has there been such an urgent need for the social involvement of individual citizens. Planet earth today is more than ever a global village where individual thoughts and actions expand like ripples, ultimately washing up on distant shores and permeating the lives of others. There is no limit to the effect an individual can have. For this reason, it is all the more important for (society) to have a sense of purpose and fulfillment in their lives. We must remember that our individual lives are not separate from our collective life as a species, or from the fate of the earth as a whole.{2}
No matter how lowly, no being is wholly lacking in value, for it has its station, it has its duties, and its rights, through which it contributes to the perfection of the whole. The idea of an order is paramount. Not the order of the abstract formula but that of a multitude of varied beings whose behaviors coexist and mesh in a vast symphony...with a dim perception of (their) own purpose.
In these capricious times history seems to have a special attraction... We measure our (progressive) direction and speed by references to great events of the past. But in this unmetaphysical society...the universe is a matter of small concern and economic orthodoxy has replaced (science and a reliance upon common sense).{1}
So much more true today than it was in mid 20th century when these words were written. But it is apparent that the range of acknowledged ignorance grows with the advance of science.
This is a difficult experience of reconciling expression of one of America's most significant anniversaries, and at the same time enduring the modern reality of a diminished, faltering nation.
It is reminiscent of Galileo's patient and unremitting attempts at reason stemming from his observations of the planet Jupiter and its moons and conveying these revelations to his peers just over 400 years ago.
Then as now, the "vast apparatus and construction was working to its own undoing, shutting their eyes, their ears and their minds. The power of discipline fit back into the complex, steering machinery, and a circuit of self-destruction" Making them, in the process, the "first bewildered casualties of the scientific age".{1}
Our task today is not that much removed. A sustainable nation/system will not be redeemed by 'big tech', mass marketing, a revival of lost industries, or politics. Nor with the ancient militant intimidation of 'spheres of influence' or the insane reliance upon fossil fuels.{3,4}
In the absence of responsible, empathetic, sympathetic, and wise leadership to avoid the repetition of Santayana's maxim of persistent pitfalls, it is easier than ever to stray from a sustainable world and future.{5}
That future is best guarded and promised (yet again) by the person "in the arena". It is for those individuals who know the true value of knowledge, wisdom, empathy, humility, cooperation.{6}
The unrecognized individuals in the arena, who help remove refuse from their neighborhood streets, those who plant gardens, those who renew their neighbors spirits, and who put others above themselves; and so many other thankless acts that are so eternally vital and indispensable for a healthy civilization.
But, importantly, the future and nation will be preserved by those who are teaching the power of the art of imagination and endure the complicated connective threads of history - true, accurate full-bodied history, not a glimmering proximity.
Ultimately, however, it will be the never-to-be-lost reliance upon science that serves as the most important redeeming social factor.{7,8}
There are boundless old problems disguised as new, limiting our nations interests and sustainable future.
The United States is still in its adolescence on the global stage, yet it has, in such a short time, accomplished more than any other country within its first 250 years.
Therefore, "it must serve as a constant reminder that it is for us the living to preserve that for which they died - freedom. Freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, of speech and of the press".{9}
Resources:
1} The Crime of Galileo. Giorgio de Santillana, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1955.
a) https://archive.org/details/crimeofgalileo0000gior_c8s3/page/n9/mode/2up
b) https://academic.oup.com/psq/article-abstract/70/4/600/7149433?redirectedFrom=fulltext
c) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/950363.The_Crime_of_Galileo
2} Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival, Brown, Tom
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/348509.Tom_Brown_s_Field_Guide_to_City_and_Suburban_Survival
3} LIVE: Atomic scientists speak on possible Doomsday Clock update
https://youtu.be/2M0U5lDd9Ac
4} How to respond to societal collapse | Sarah Wilson | TEDxSydney
https://youtu.be/l7Ay73HHHrE
5} George Santayana: The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress. New York: Scribner’s; London: Constable. Introduction and Reason in Common Sense (1905), Reason in Society (1905), Reason in Religion (1905), Reason in Art (1905), and Reason in Science (1906).
a} https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/santayana/
6} The Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
a) https://youtu.be/1iOF0Fzj2ec
b) https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-sorbonne-paris-france-citizenship-republic
7} New medical school blends art and science to train new doctors
https://youtu.be/9QjlmQ0p2JE
8} Fareed's Take: People around the world are dissatisfied with democracy
https://youtu.be/nx1UGyfJiVo
9} Bishop Leo Steck, 31 May 948
https://www.nytimes.com/1950/06/21/archives/bishop-leo-j-steck-of-salt-lake-diocese.html
Santayana:
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience."
