RICHARD FERNANDEZ: You Are The ‘World.’
The Military Times calls it a puzzle. A survey shows that president Obama has the approval of only 15 percent of military personnel yet a majority now accept the reality of gays in the military and women in combat roles. But there’s no contradiction. Acceptance has always been different from approval. Most of us accept we are going to die of some day, even though not many approve approve. The US military, like civilians, may have little fondness for their Pointy Haired Bosses yet still go to work each day and boast: “I never missed a day of work in my life.”
One of the most salient characteristic of American culture is “can do” — its ability to find a way around obstacles placed in its path. Reuters recently reported that ice-cream shops in Venezuela are closing due to the unavailability of milk. In America the outcome may have been the invention of a source of artificial milk. Instead of closing the shops they might have reopened as artificial ice cream parlors.
American oil and gas companies reacted precisely in this way to government discouragement. The industry simply invented new technologies which made America the biggest oil producer in the world.
In the United States failure appears to be a profit opportunity. Several American friends have unaccountably offered me exactly the same piece of sage advice. ”Richard, never trust anyone who hasn’t failed.” In their view anyone who hasn’t been flat broke at least once in his life has some kind of character defect. One acquaintance wistfully recalled the time he lost his fortune and had to live out of his car, and how that motivated him to even greater wealth. Maybe his last conscious thoughts when the time comes to cross the river will not be of the yacht anchored off the Riviera, or of starlit nights and steel guitars in Rio, but fond memories of a shower and shave at the CITGO rest room.
The downside to this laudable impulse to self-help is that very few American politicians are ever punished for their blunders. The population apparently finds it easier to adapt. It is easier to invent a new industry than start a political movement.
Indeed.