Rebirth of the nation.

• Author: Gardner, John W.

What is needed is "an extraordinary resurgence of spirit on the part of the American people - a fierce commitment to the common good, and intention to pull together, and a willingness to sacrifice."

Every informed American understands the gravity of the problem we face today. Yet, such difficulties themselves are not as perplexing as the questions they raise concerning our capacity to gather our forces and act. We can talk endlessly about technical solutions, but nothing will happen without that capacity. No doubt many of the grave issues that beset us have discoverable: though difficult, solutions. However, to mobilize the required resources and bear the necessary sacrifices calls for a high level of motivation.

Suppose that our shared values have disintegrated to the point that we no longer can lend ourselves to any worthy common purpose. Shared values are the bedrock on which leaders build the edifice of group achievement. Suppose they no longer exist. Suppose that our institutions no longer can adapt to a changing world. Suppose that our sense of community is weakened by unresolved internal conflicts. If we face those issues, we may be able to answer whether we have it in us to create a future worthy of our past. Not to face that question with the utmost seriousness would be remarkably foolish.

The nation is in deep trouble on many fronts. We recently have gone through the greatest spending and speculative binge since the 1920s. The Federal deficit is projected at $400,000,000,000, the highest in our history. The national debt of four trillion dollars in effect is a tax on our grandchildren. The corrupting role of money in political campaigns, scandals involving members of Congress, meanness of electoral politics, and substitution of image-making for substantive policy proposals have contributed to the cynicism. Citizens don't feel they can hold their government accountable or that they can make a difference.

The list of devastating problems includes unemployment, poverty, troubled schools, neglected children, racial conflict, environmental degradation, a gravely inadequate health care system, decaying infrastructure, international crises, etc. There was exaggeration in the remark of a television commentator that we are sliding swiftly toward the status of a second-class nation, but everyone knew what he was talking about. Thoughtful people recognize that a turn-around will call for a massive national effort. Many Americans remember how the nation rose to the fierce wartime demands of 1942-45. The present challenge is smaller in scale, but conceivably even more dangerous. Most civilizations are conquered less often by traitors within the gate than by those within the heart - loss of belief, corruption, a dwindling sense of control, and disintegration of shared purposes.

Perhaps the most familiar expression of concern for America's troubles is an anguished cry for leadership, but our topmost leaders alone can not save us. We have learned through hard experience - and the corporate world has led the way in demonstrating this - that, in a society composed of large and intricately organized systems, leaders must be dispersed widely throughout all segments and down through all levels. In every segment and at every level, there must be individuals capable of taking leadership to make their piece of the system work, people prepared to accommodate system-wide policy to ground-level realities, women and men who are not afraid to send word back up the line that new policies need amendment or reversal.

So, a wake-up call to the nation must be a call to several million Americans capable of exercising leader-like influence where they live and work. I have seen and worked with such people in every part of this country - men and women, old and young, at every level of our national life. Some are (or have been) public officials; some have been prominent in business; many play creative roles...