Understanding "common ground" for the future of the United States, and humanity


Since I'm a time-traveler, not really an historian, I like to travel into the future every once in a while. To me, the river of time is all that has ever been, and all that will ever be, and I like to dip my hands into the river at any point. And my travels have given me great hope, and optimism, for the human race.

I watched a video a couple of days ago, which was created for the Superbowl, advertising a car company. And what struck me the most was looking at a pair of hands in the dirt, with the message of "common ground".

Common ground is a very difficult concept for most people to grasp, but it's at the heart of my optimism for the United States, where I live, and for the human race, of which I'm a part. It means finding something in common, the opposite of focusing on differences.

Not surprisingly, the people who focus on differences push back very hard against this message. And I've known people like that all of my life. But I still have hope. And that's because I've seen places where there are so many differences that it's impossible to keep track. The common ground comes naturally.

I often used the expression "Not knowing who to hate" as the future of humanity. And that means that everybody is so blended together that we don't know what race they are (if you care to hate races), or there are so many faiths that you don't know which ones to disagree with (if you choose to disagree with a person's faith), the list goes on and on. I've seen places like this, and I've seen the future of humanity, and the United States has been doing this for a very long time, and will continue to lead the world.

I won't live long enough to see a census that doesn't ask for my race (which is human), but I know the day will come. You really don't have to travel too far back in time to find things that people just took for granted, like miscegenation, which nowadays just fades into the past, as it should.

Common ground means agreeing on things that are important for all people. It's the greatest goal of the human race, and it always has been. 

I can see the future, and the future is common ground.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more