The Cold War
I know that what historians call The Cold War lasted from 1946 to 1989 according to all the encyclopedias. My first thirty-five years were spent under that regime and it is a part of my fabric as a person as much as it is for all Baby Boomers. I never had to hide under my desk in a drill, but I do recall crouching with my hands over my head in the green-tiled hallway of the locker room of our grade school. I remember my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hunt, being called out of the room by the principal on November 22, 1963 (the mid-way point in The Cold War) and seeing her crying in the hallway over the assignation of John F. Kennedy. We were living under a cloud that threatened our well-being. We went about our work and our play, but there was a nagging overriding unease about our existence as a race of people. There is an old joke where a guy goes to the doctor for an important test result and the doctor says, “I wouldn’t buy any long-playing records.” We were not buying any long-playing records during The Cold War and that is not a good thing.
When I taught a pension course at Cornell for ten years, I decried the coming of a great global pension crisis which would create a “species-defining event” for mankind since we would be forced to decide between caring properly for our old versus providing adequately for our young. That crisis has not become any less severe and may well be the overriding existential threat I deemed it to be, but I now think that is not the overarching theme of our new Cold War. I think it is simply a piece of the story that we face as people. To me, the new Cold War is the us versus them philosophy that is getting popularized in our increasingly populated and perhaps over-crowded world.
I fear that inter-generational contention brought about by the global pension crisis is just a part of the larger “wet blanket” which appears to be covering the earth in greater and greater proportions every day. The old Cold War was a nuclear struggle between two super powers and hinged on the moral suasion of what boiled down to two men with their fingers on the button. That is scary in one way for sure. Now the Cold War is far harder to narrow down as to combatants. Is it Christian versus Muslim? Is it Baby Boomers versus Millennials? Is it Arab versus Israeli? Is it the UK versus the EU? Is it Republicans versus Democrats? Is it North Korea versus the world? I hate to say it, but it seems to be all of them and more. It is a global battle of insufficiency. Or is it?
I would observe that the indomitability of mankind has consistently proven that it can overcome insufficiency with technological advances. We can feed, clothe and house the world as well as cure most of the world of many of its illnesses. That is simply a fact. It may not be a limitless ability, but so far, technological advance has done a fine job of staying out ahead of the need.
When I was handling the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980’s I learned an important lesson. One must define the difference between ability to pay and willingness to pay. Ability is far easier with which to grapple. Willingness is all about greed and fear and human beings don’t fare well in the face of these primal issues. In the movie, A Beautiful Mind, John Nash comes up with the theory that cooperation may be a more productive path for sufficiency than competition. It is an unnatural conclusion for most people in adverse circumstances. That means that it requires more enlightenment and more assurance to employ such a strategy. We must almost guaranty an outcome to all for order not to break down and result in a free-for-all. Free-for-alls are anything but free and nothing about all.
I understand that I am verging on utopian thinking to suggest that we stop being competitive creatures. I am forced to quote Oscar Wilde, who famously said that, “The definition of a cynic is that he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” I want us to stop focusing on price and start focusing on value. That is a bit of a play on words, but the sentiment is becoming all too real.
During the Cold War we somehow managed to avert disaster by recognizing through the horror of nuclear winter, that we gain more through cooperation than from competition. We are faced with another nuclear winter, another dark ages. We cannot succumb to the temptation offered by the new right to duke it out with everyone. Nationalism is the first step towards oblivion.
Just look at what’s happening in Great Britain. The Brexit situation has shown us what a contrary approach to being too self-centered can create. It leads to chaos and ultimately hurts the people who were most concerned about getting hurt. Cooperation is become more clearly a better path. The problem is that you may well foreclose that cooperative option once you go down the combative option.
I hate to think that we are entering a new Cold War, but I suspect we are there already. We will know for sure in 2020. What an irony that 20-20 refers to perfect vision. If we have perfect vision, we will be able to avert a new Cold War and if our global vision is less than perfect we might well start the slide into darkness. What I believe we all must recognize is that we may well need a Cold War period to contemplate all the horrors that a combative approach leads to. It almost seems like an inevitability to me versus just taking a reckless, “Brexit-like” path that leads to no good outcome.
I can’t believe I am saying this after 30 years of life without a Cold War wet blanket over my shoulders, but I am hoping that 2020 brings about a new Cold War so that we can all have the time to recognize that the path of cooperation and globalism is the only path to salvation.