Do You Want Better Times?
AS WE head into the second quarter of 1974, how does the future look to you? Do today’s problems and uncertainties stir your desire for better times—times that would allow for a fuller, more refreshing enjoyment of life?
Millions of persons feel that way today. And with good reason too. Never have people lived in a time when men have had greater power to accomplish things, yet they seem to do so poorly.
For example: A year ago there was a feeling that the world was on the verge of something really big—a major change for the better. The Vietnam war seemed to be winding down, there was a growing spirit of détente between the United States and Russia. Red China had come into the United Nations, and its massive doors were slowly and steadily opening up to the outside world. Many nations were in the midst of an economic “boom.” But the months that followed sent the world into a virtual tailspin, leaving people somewhat bewildered by the suddenness of the changes.
Thus, when 1974 came on the scene it found Britishers suddenly thrust into a three-day workweek, Frenchmen paying $1.30 a gallon for gasoline (and still better off than Italians, who were paying $1.45 a gallon), while people in Japan were asking themselves how their booming economy—that had zoomed them up to the position of the third-greatest commercial power on earth—could have proved so vulnerable to the Arab states’ oil embargo, not even quick efforts at appeasement doing much to remove the bleakness of future economic prospects. And reviewing the political scene in the United States, a writer in the Seattle Times said:
“The things which happened in American politics [in 1973] were so bizarre it almost seemed that some diabolical scriptwriter was sitting up nights cackling, creating a new shock for the next day.”
The Disturbing Factor
What is it that has shaken people up so much? It is the effect these things have had on their hopes for the future. One Britisher said of the situation in England: “This is not a recession yet—it is just the rehearsal.” Rather than planning several years ahead, the confused attitude of so many was expressed by the Los Angeles woman who said: “One year at a time is all we can handle.”
After natural disasters—floods, earthquakes, droughts—or temporary upheavals such as wars, people generally feel they still can ‘pick up the pieces and start over again,’ working for a better future. What is now so disturbing and frustrating to many is that they have seen repeated examples of how unstable and uncertain the world’s basic systems are. The giant systems that men have proudly built up now prove surprisingly fragile and subject to becoming disjointed when least expected.
The big question in so many persons’ minds therefore is: ‘In what can we trust? On what can we build for the future that will prove to be more than shifting sand?’