Our Moment in History

"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you." - Kendall Hailey

We are living in perhaps one of the most important moments in the history of humankind. This might be seen through many things: the way our global awareness is changing political policy, economics, the very meaning of culture. Perhaps we can shed light on the overall effect of this moment in history by examining one specific part. Let us take the recent emergence of electric technology. Although electricity could have been used for inventions at any time in history if we consider available resources and human intellect - it was not. It was only dealt with in the last few generations. Every generation before now had the common experience of dealing with transportation and communication in manual, low technology ways. People walked or rode animals to get around. They talked or wrote by hand to communicate. But the people alive on earth right now in most cultures (not all) have absolutely no common bond of this experience with all of the preceding generations.

We have lost something.

There arise two large questions here. Why were the first inventions of electricity made simultaneously by a community of scientists in different countries at virtually the same moment in history and not before in the thousands of years of recorded history? And, if we have lost a very basic common element with our ancestors, what if anything have we gained?

Charles Lindbergh is credited with saying of his first flight across the Atlantic that the pioneer has the eyes of the poet - the ability to see meaning that followers may never get to see. In this moment of history, we are pioneers. We are the generation that has been born into a new world that is radically different than the old one. Our world can know what people all over the planet are doing - and can reach out to them. Our world can also have terrorism, where the bad work of a few can hurt large numbers of others. We have a moment, here, now. And we have just invented a myriad of electrical devices that we can choose to use to put ourselves to sleep or to use as a wake up call. We can wake up to the fact that we are the first humans in recorded history that can play with fire. Our technology makes our sisters and brothers across the world seem as if they are in our back yard.

Could we be the generation that is ready for sister/brotherhood?

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