A Peek at the New Millennium: Optimism Tempered by Realism - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 1999 by Gerald F. Kreyche

The twentieth century saw more development and rapidity of change than any before it. Most was classified under the rubric of progress, although some doubts have been cast in that direction. It also produced many devastating wars.

The consumer world saw textiles, once made only from natural materials such as cotton and wool, replaced by synthetics. Plastics have been substituted for much metal and wood. Early wanton abuses of nature have given way to an environmental ethic which all but sanctifies it. Energy needs are now fulfilled in part by nuclear power, and previous labor-intensive activity has been replaced by computerized machinery. What does the new century have in store for us? Whatever it is, we should proceed with caution, as there are no free lunches. Newton's law that "for every action there is an equal and opposing reaction" still rules the roost.

Technology surely will continue its meteoric rise, but, with it, one will find increasing depersonalization. Automatic phone answering services asking us to press buttons 1, 2, 3, or # are symptomatic and uniformly hated. If we are put on hold, we are subject to elevator music or advertisements, a kind of forced feeding that is annoying at best, sheer torture at worst.

More work will be performed at home through the good graces of computerized networks. Yet, the need for socializing, even at one's job, remains basic. People should recall the adage that "it is not good for man to be alone."

The field of medicine continues to advance, and individuals are living longer and staying in better health. Meanwhile, the expenses for drugs and new equipment--both for diagnosis and treatment--are rising exponentially. Medicare is in serious trouble, as are Medicaid and socialized medicine the world over. (Canada and Sweden are prime examples.) Who will pay for all this is a priority question. The increasingly high percentage of seniors living longer cannot be supported by a diminished population of younger people. This is just one more example that what is good for some is not good for others. With the advent of HMOs, there is much discontent not only among patients, but doctors as well--so much so that the latter are unionizing to press their demands.

Biological experiments with stem cells that can turn into any kind of cell needed will be another boon. Organs will be restored and some limb replacements will be possible. It is not only the costs of this procedure that raise objections, but the ethical questions involved, similar to those with cloning. Given the nature of science, however, advances are bound to occur, even to the point of artificially producing humans. This no longer is just a theoretical possibility, but a realistic one. Given human nature and the quest for knowledge, what is possible soon becomes necessary. Somehow, ethics artfully will find ways of reinterpreting principles to accommodate these new practices.

Business has become increasingly global. Corporations will necessarily care less about the country of their origin and more about the world at large. This trend toward globalism is just one inroad to the loss of nationalism. Another is the pushing of diversity in a given society to the point where it suffers a loss of its own identity.

In order to increase profits, mega-mergers will become even more rampant, with subsequent downsizing of employees. These employers will still pay living wages, but to fewer and fewer workers. Additionally, given the more sophisticated nature of work, a new division of humanity is being created. The old one of the "haves and the have nots" is being replaced by the "technological cognoscenti and those not so knowledgeable."

Mainline religions--indeed most organized religions--are rapidly losing their appeal, as institutionalism of all sorts is eschewed today. There no longer is collective agreement by the churches, or even within a given denomination, on many basic moral and social questions, such as divorce, birth control, cohabitation, premarital sex, abortions, euthanasia, and homosexuality. The distinction between private and public morality is going by the boards.

More and more people are making up their own minds on these issues as they reorder their lives existentially. Paradoxically, many are joining dogmatic cults, giving the lie to "doing their own thing."

The churches, sensing their possible demise, are opting for more social services to their members, rather than pushing dogmatic theology. In effect, the sacred and the profane have consumated their own merger, with a this-worldly religion in the making.

In higher education, liberal arts is being ushered out the back door as job-training and computer literacy are pushing in the front door. Academe is becoming the place not for lifting up society, but leveling it. More and more, administrators are told they must raise the percentage of minority graduation rates. Entitlement is the buzzword today, not merit.

The government continues to be in a bind in pushing minorities to the foreground through whatever means it can. This goes on despite the consensus that there is something wrong and itself discriminatory about affirmative action. It doesn't fit in with a democracy.