How the prices destroy what makes America wonderful – The Mercury News

I will let the others describe the economic prices of carnage of the carnage Donald Trump have already started to provoke. I want to describe the damage they will do at the American psyche and the American soul.

Trump builds walls. Its trade policies are not only hindering the flow of goods, but also the flow of ideas, contacts, technology and friendships. His immigration policies do the same. It aggresses the most involved institutions and communities in international exchange: scientific researchers, universities, diplomatic corps, foreign aid agencies and international alliances such as NATO.

The essence of the Trump agenda could be: we do not like these damn foreigners.

The problem is that the great nations through the history of Western civilization have been the nations of Carrefour. They were places where people from everywhere have met, exchanged ideas and have made new ones. In his book “Cities in Civilization”, Peter Hall watched the most innovative places over the centuries: Athens in the 5th century BC, Florence in the 15th century, from the end of the 18th century on the eve of the Second World War, New York from the end of the 19th century in the middle of the 20th century, the region of bay later.

They were all meeting places for people from different nations. Hall writes: “People meet, people speak, people listen to the music of the other and the words of others, dance the dances of the other, admire thoughts of each other. And so, by geography accidents, sparks can be struck and something new comes from the meeting. ” This, he continues, occurs in the junction points, places that encourage global interaction. These places have common characteristics: they are non -cups, non -classic, non -hierarchical, informal.

Economic innovation explodes, “he writes:” In places with a rich network of import channels, which in turn provide channels for new ideas. “

Safety state of mind

It was America. A crossroads nation, we attracted highly motivated immigrants who wanted to be where the action was. We defended free trade. British colonialism and American internationalism have made English the closest thing we have of a world language.

It was our future. In a 2009 essay for Foreign Affairs entitled “America’s Edge”, Anne-Marie Slaughter argued that power in the 21st century would accumulate the nations that were at the center of the networks, and that America was well suited to play this role. We have a diversified population with global connections, alliances in two large oceans, the biggest universities with large foreign student bodies.

All this is damaged. But it is not even my main concern. My main concern is the spirit and values ​​of the country. People ‘psychologies are formed by the conditions that surround them. The conditions that Trump creates are based and nourish a state of security spirit: they threaten us; It is a zero -sum world, for dog dogs; We have to protect, protect, protect. We have to build walls.

Again, the problem is that if you look at the cultures of societies at their peak, it is roughly the opposite of the mentality you find. In “Civilization”, his own investigation into the strengths of Western history, art critic Kenneth Clark concluded that major periods are built on great confidence – the confidence of a nation in its laws and capacities. This shared culture of confidence naturally allowed people social courage, a ventilation spirit.

American explorers

Think, for example, of the kind of people who stimulate innovation and dynamism. How are they?

They put themselves in unknown situations. They are enthusiastic about the novelty. Journalist Adam Hochschild wrote once: “When I am in a country radically different from mine, I notice much more. It is as if I were taking a drug altering the spirit that allows me to see things that I would normally miss. I feel much more alive.”

They have diversity curiosity. Their interests and enthusiasm cover many spheres. Nobel Prize winners are at least 22 times more likely than average scientists to have a parallel hobby as a magician, actor, dancer or another type of interpreter.

They have a social range, a wide variety of friends. In the decades preceding the publication of “on the origin of species”, Charles Darwin exchanged regular letters with at least 231 scientists in 13 different fields, as varied as the economy and biology.

They are able to combine disparate visions of the world. Creativity often occurs when someone combines two ideas of ideas. Pablo Picasso combined the Western portrait with African masks. Johannes Gutenberg combined the engraving in wood of wood, the manufacture of parts and the press to the wine to create his press to print.

They are motivated towards continuous growth. They seek to extend their interests and accessories, to engage in continuous self-improvement. You can spot such people because they have gone through different chapters. Always learning, they have moved their interests and their visions of the world over the years, have demolished a way of taking on meaning and building something new. Ralph Waldo Emerson was on something when he wrote: “Not in his goals but in his transitions, the man is great.”

There is a name for the values ​​and posture that I describe here: cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan has roots in a city and a nation, but treasures and learns many other national flows. In a sentence that I used here before, his life is a series of daring explorations of a secure base.

Sometimes it seems that the 21st century attended an attack after another on cosmopolitanism – from September 11. The leader after the leader calls for fear of impurity and threat. This average global atmosphere reduces the contacts between peoples not only, but it stifles the venturety which was the best decisive feature of America. Trump called on Wednesday liberation day, but stagnation day could be more like that.

If America is still in America, these prices will represent the turning point of the Trump presidency. People will be indignant by the unnecessary economic pain they cause; And, more subtly, revolted by the loose values ​​they represent.

David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times.