My Alien America

In 2018, I posted a piece taking as its thesis “Every American dies in a country alien to that in which they were born.” This month I find myself looking down the barrel of my own idea. I have lived one of the fifty-year intervals I described.

What has changed since 1973?

Most importantly, the Cold War is over. It is difficult to remember, even for those of us who there, how it formed the backdrop for all of American politics and culture. The immediacy that we could all die in a few hours never entirely went away. The first question every American politician had to face was “What are you going to do about the Commies?” The world was a game in which we, as a nation, were either winning or losing. My children know nothing of this feeling, which I view as definite improvement.

Once the Cold War ended, the Culture Wars became the focus of American politics, and here too the landscape is vastly different. In 1973, the idea that women could be something besides wives and mothers had barely any traction. The idea of same-sex marriage was inconceivable. America was far more Christian—even the hippies had become Jesus Freaks. In all these things, people voted with their feet, one by one, until what looked eternal slowly became voluntary, and then a minority position.

America is cleaner now. The rivers are cleaner. Los Angeles is not regularly under a blanket of smog. The bison, the eagle, the wolf, have renewed their numbers. Over the interval, environmental issues have zeroed in to the one overwhelming problem of global climate change.

The economy is different. The closing Dow Jones for 1973 was 1031. For 2022, it was 33,147. Forty-four years ago 22% of the American labor force worked in manufacturing, in 2021 9% did. By contrast, in 1970, 2.7% percent of the economy came from the finance industry. At the end of 2022, it was 7.6%. Solid objects have given way to numbers. In the midst of this, the real median income rose from $26,509 to $37,522. Somehow, we find a way to grow richer—yet it is still not enough for everyone.

You may be reading this on a hyperpowerful little computer you carry around in your pocket. In this way, at least, life in 2023 is a science fiction vision of 1973. Fifty years ago music was LPs or reel-to-reel, microwave ovens were cutting edge, and computers large and used exclusively by government agencies and major corporations. Digital calculators were available, but expensive. Now we live in a wealth of silicon, putting ourselves in almost constant contact with one another. Events around the world can be followed in real time.. The effect is complex, and of ambiguous value, but undeniably breathtaking.

The quietest, but most important changes are demographic. The U.S. population has risen by roughly 40%, from 211 million to 333 million. At the same time, the median age climbed from 28.1 to 38.8. We are more numerous, and older. In 1970, whites made up 83.5% of the population, Blacks 11.1% , and everyone else 5.7%. Now Hispanics number 18.7% and Asians 6.2% (including South Asians, a community that barely existed when I was born). All this makes for tectonic effect.

This is my America, the one I have watched happen over my years. Is it alien to me?

You can’t pick your age. It gets handed to you. Yet, having been handed this age, I feel blessed. I feel blessed to have witnessed the fall of the Soviet Empire. I feel blessed to have witnessed the coming of LGBT+ rights. I feel blessed to have lived through the heady days of the 90s prosperity. Many bad things happened, I know. But I was able to witness a small piece of the Unprecedented Era, a time equal to the Axial Age, or greater, in its importance to human history, here in this most crucial of nations. It may that this is the zenith of human prosperity and freedom–and I got to be there. I got to live it. For that, I am profoundly grateful.

I don’t know how much more America I will get to watch. Another twenty-five years, or a little more. May they be good days. May this nation, and this world, pick the right path, the path of peace and justice. I pray that every day. I will keep watching, in anticipation.