National crises: There are lots of them, and
they have common features.
The United States is spiraling into a crisis
today.
Other countries, countries that I know well
and have lived in, have gotten through crises,
such as Australia, Germany, Finland, Chile,
Indonesia, Japan.
There are generalizations about the outcomes
of national crises.
A country is not going to resolve a national
crisis unless it acknowledges that it's in
a crisis.
If you don't, you're going to get nowhere.
Many Americans still don't recognize today
that the United States is descending into
a crisis.
An obvious second step is that once you recognize
that you're in a crisis, you have to acknowledge
that you have a responsibility.
There's something that you can do about it.
It's not enough to say, 'Wah, wah, poor me.
I'm a helpless victim.
Pity, pity, self pity, there's nothing I can
do.'
Nonsense.
Even if there were bad countries out there,
getting out of the crisis will then depend
upon what you are going to do vis-á-vis those
bad countries.
In the United States nowadays, there's too
much talk about what those Chinese and what
those Canadians and what those Mexicans are
doing to us and isn't that terrible, and not
enough talk about how we Americans are generating
our own problems.
The only people who can ruin democracy in
the United States are Americans.
There's no way that Canadians and Mexicans
or Chinese can undermine American democracy.
These are national crises.
But by now, all of you just reflect back on
your personal lives; we've all had personal
crises.
Our marriages have broken down; a loved one,
a child, a spouse, a brother or a sister died,
transforming our view of the justice of the
world; we encountered a financial crisis or
a career crisis or a health crisis.
We all know about these crises, and we all
know by experience how we succeeded or, for
a while, we resisted at getting through our
personal crises.
We all know that as long as we deny that we
were in a crisis, as long as we said, 'My
marriage is working great' until the day when
your wife or husband walked in and said 'I'm
getting a divorce,' you didn't deal with problems
in your marriage as long you said my marriage
is doing great.
Or when your marriage breaks down, and you
say, 'Wah wah, it's because of my terrible
husband or wife.'
But what did you do to provoke your terrible
husband or wife?
It's your responsibility.
If you want to have a better next marriage,
you better do something about it.
Or the confidence that you get from previous
crises.
I had a severe professional crisis at the
age of 21.
I had subsequent professional crises, but
because I got through my crisis at age 21,
when new crises came up later, I thought 'Hm,
I got through something terrible before.
I'll probably get through this one now.'
Similarly, for nations, nations gain confidence
looking through -- from the memory of the
previous national crises that they got through.
Finland -- when Finland celebrated its 100
years of independence last year, the focus
of Finland's celebration of independence was
not Finland's independence.
It was instead, Finland preserving its independence
in the war against the Soviet Union in 1939
to 1945.
The Finns felt we got through that, we can
get through anything.
For we Americans, we got through some terrible
things in the past.
We got through our war of independence, we
got through the Civil War, we got through
the Depression, we got through Pearl Harbor,
we got through these terrible things.
Yes, we have problems today.
But we solved difficult problems in the past.
We can solve this one today.
