A metaphor for the sales pitch in social media (a.k.a. I’ll find any excuse to flatter Doug, the orange hand puppet)

We live in a world in world long on media and short on logic-- We are awash with information, but bereft of meaning. This is a defining aspect of the new global knowledge economy and the digital platforms on which it rests. We fritter away authentic time enamored by the contrived and virtual. Ever attached to some information-generating device—a cell phone, an iPhone, a BlackBerry, an iPad, we are all well rounded, but only within a very small radius. We are too busy tweeting. googling, instant messaging or e-mailing to read the writing on history's wall. The Tsunanmi rolls toward the shore, but we are too wired to hear the deafening roar.

Does Obama believe in "American Exceptionalism?"

There is much talk these days of "American Exceptionalism." Does President Obama adequately espouse it, or even believe in it? The fact is—his Ivy education notwithstanding—he has probably never really considered it.

The Calvinist eschatology, introduced by the Puritans in the 17th century, perfectly stated by Jonathan Edwards in the 18th century and accepted as canonical by the end of the 19th century, is a highly nuanced idea that America is on a divine "errand" to usher in the millennial Kingdom of God.

In 1630, addressing Englishmen aboard the ship Arbella, John Winthrop warned his Puritan passengers to, "Consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us." They were on their way to establish “the Bible Commonwealth,” better known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

President-Elect John F. Kennedy resurrected the famous phrase during his Farewell Address to the General Court of Massachusetts, in which he stated that, "I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-one years ago as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier." In fact, this dramatic scene and the colonial history that followed provided the historical context for Kennedy’s entire "New Frontier" campaign.

Ronald Reagan spoke of the "Shining City on a Hill" at every whistle stop. Having learned it in Sunday School, the idea captured him and animated his entire presidency. He saw American as, "God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace...a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity."

In fact, every American President from George Washington to George W. Bush articulated America's singular mission in patently theological terms. Abraham Lincoln spoke of America as "God's almost chosen people—the last best hope for mankind."

Does Obama believe in American Exceptionalism? Let's just say that it wasn’t still taught at Harvard during his time there.

Do Americans love kids?

Do Americans love kids?

At a recent dinner party in NW Washington, D. C. I said something about edcuation. An indignant woman seated next to me blurted out, "Are you saying Americans don't love kids?" It is a good question....do American's love kids? Whether you look at abortion statistics, the dehumanizing coarseness of our commercial culture, or the state of our government schools, I'm afraid the question answers itself.

American families beg for safe schools and we give them metal detectors. They beg for highly qualified teachers and we give them "certified" educators who claim to deserve ever higher pay. Families beg for for higher academic standards and more challenging curricula and we give them politically sanitized texts that satisfy no one, except the Texas State School Board. They demand some kind of accountability, and we give them massive bureaurcratic testing programs.

In fact, American families are now paying more than $700,000,000,000 (yes that means billions) to have a government run gulag that ranks amongst the lowest performing of any industrialized nation. And we continue to be told that if we will spend just a little more, "reform" will be right around the corner.

Do Americans love kids? It is a very good question.

The Life of the Mind and the Soul

Just as surely as the sources of America’s greatness have been intellectual and moral, the secret to our future peace and prosperity will be rooted in a deepening of the life of the mind and the soul. The real challenge to America’s stunning hegemony is not the inevitable distribution of digital devices to rustic peoples in faraway places. It is the palpable loss of the singular spiritual imagination and moral clarity which—from Plymouth Plantation to the Lunar Landing—has defined us.

C.S. Lewis on Education

After the young atheist, C.S. Lewis, read George MacDonald, he wrote, "The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live.” It is only those who enter this reality who are educated at all.

The solution to racisim is not racism. It is great to see Al Sharpton and Newt Ginrich together on educational reform, but they begin their conversation talking about race. Untill we have ONE curriculum for rich and poor, "red and yellow, black and white," we will not have educational equality--or excellence. Untill all kids who live in the same town and who are in the same grade sit at the same tables and read the same books and take the same tests and are held to the same standards, we will continue to to have huge disparities in the mesaurable performance of public school children.

Until policy makers actually have to use the schools they foist on the rest of us, "reform" will just be so much hot air. It's August. 'Tis the season for politicians and media pundits to be deeply concerned about "reform."

A Little Historical Perspective

To argue that technological superiority was the cause of America’s remarkable rise to preeminence would be like attributing Tiger Woods’ mastery of the golf world to his Nike clubs. The only thing more irrational would be to accept the fashionable fiction that with enough math and science we can maintain global leadership in the 21st century.

Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra—one of India’s great industrial combinations—recently made this point at a symposium at Harvard Business School. He argued that America’s significant scientific edge is a thing of the past, noting that India already has several schools of technology as good as any in the United States. He is right. That horse is out of the barn.

Mr. Mahindra—a great admirer of the United States—went on to point out that what made America great was not it’s technological edge but its historic attention to “the liberal arts.” He insisted that it is “America’s vision of humanity” that makes us a beacon for the rest of the world.

If we can adjust our minds to this reality, then Daniel J. Boorstin’s definition of education as “learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know” will take on a whole new meaning. If we can for a moment think outside of the moment or see ourselves the way other nations see us, we will realize that a renewed study of philosophy, history, civics and humane letters represents our best path to cultural renewal and international leadership. We will gradually come to grasp that, after decades of calculated abandonment, the classics are the new frontier of useful knowledge.