2007 is here, and 181 years ago Thomas Jefferson was laid in his grave.  The man has been blessed and cursed at various times by various people, often for the same reason, but he is doubtlessly one of the most influential of the founding fathers.  In spite of his influences and ideals, today's America bears little resemblance to his agrarian visions.  Land ownership is not the panacea he imagined, the farmer has become a corporate machine, and while America does import many of its manufactured goods, we export knowledge instead of cotton.

            That Alexander Hamilton, the philosophical arch-rival of Jefferson, would be shocked as well is small comfort.  The factory cities of his dreams have become Detroit and Pittsburgh, grimy, blight-ridden metropolises struggling to deal with the new paradigms of American trade and manufacturing. 

            It is noteworthy that the areas which have held on to the idylls of either of these two pillars of our nation have floundered.  If every one of our 300 million American citizens were to have an equal amount of land, they would get about 8 acres, even if it were all arable it is nowhere near what is required to feed a person.  Discussions of economies of scale and specialization aside, it is evident that Jefferson's vision was for a small America.

            Had Hamilton's desires been realized we should be in a worse pickle.  An uneducated population serving as laborers and enriching a small elite is not a stable house either.  Such an arrangement is reminiscent of the Russian czars in their heyday, with hints of the communist USSR to come. 

            Depriving people of industrial excellence (Jefferson) or initiative (Hamilton) is toxic.  America has always built herself on knowledge products, in different ways at different times, and we have done a very good job of it.  A bachelor's degree is pretty much of a requirement to be competitive in the market today.  Masters degrees are expected in more fields every year.  America is still competitive in the global market, we still incite mimic products, we are still the target of patent thievery, and things seem to keep on rolling our way.

            Why, then, do I feel that we have lost a valuable connection to our surroundings?  That we lack a curiosity rooted in the natural world?  How did this come to pass, and can or should it be remedied?  These questions niggle at the edges of the new year, for who knows what it may bring?

Happy New Year 2007!

 

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