America as Icarus

Icarus out of arrogance flew too close to the sun and the heat melted the wax that held his wings to his body and he fell to his death in the sea. Similarly as a nation, if we elect and/or follow leaders both in the government and private sectors driven by arrogance, we will get burned. The following statement is a Freudian slip by President Bush (W) revealing the increasing arrogance of many government officials. “Tax cuts for the rich should be made permanent, Bush said. The rich, he explained, will hire accountants and shift the burden to the middle class anyway.” 

Next we have arrogance in the private sector among financial companies compounded by greed. “At a time when U.S. soldiers are fighting and dying in Iraq, lawmakers denounced widespread instances of financial companies targeting military personnel with high-pressure sales tactics and charging them exorbitant commissions.”  

Icarus was only filled with hubris. American oligarchs are both arrogant and greedy—a deadly combination. Our values seem to be getting less healthy than those we embodied in our past when as a people we seemed to have healthier ideals than we possess today. In his book “The American Dream” Jeremy Rifkin compares the values of Europeans and Americans. “The American Dream puts an emphasis on economic growth, personal wealth and independence,” he writes, “The new European Dream focuses more on sustainable development, quality of life, and interdependence.”  The contrast between the values of Americans and Europeans as characterized by Rifkin is striking and Americans should be feeling the heat of the sun about now.

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References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.