Living With Perspective: Recognizing Progress Amidst Seeking Improvement

Keep it in Perspective

     As Americans, we’re often reminded of issues facing our society.  No doubt real obstacles impacting lives of Vermonters. And we must continue pressing forward in addressing these head-on.

Trendlines of Improvement - Past Measures

    However, we also need acknowledge by nearly any metric - health, education, economic opportunity, personal liberties - the average American lives at a higher standard than nearly any cohort in human history. Diseases that ravaged prior generations have been controlled. Poverty and violence continue declining from peaks in past decades. Individual rights keep expanding to more identities. The trendlines point upward.

    Importantly, the rights and reforms we continue to fight for have their underpinnings in the Western philosophical tradition. Concepts of individual liberty, human dignity, and reason that developed from classical Greek and Enlightenment thought still guide our notions of justice. America’s founders structured declared rights informed directly by these ethical frameworks.

Ethical Foundations Guiding Reform

    Our ceiling for moral vision today builds upon centuries of brilliant minds debating the contours of a just society, one where each person receives fair treatment and opportunity to self-determine their fate. So the yardstick by which we measure enduring shortcomings itself relies on the advances already made expanding who gets included as deserving of basic protections. We stand on the shoulders of giants, even while striving to go further still.

    This too easily gets lost in hyperbolic rhetoric and toxic debates that corrode our discourse.  We must remember that the very outcry over remaining injustices emerges from an expanding circle of concern, as once ignored issues now offend modern sensibilities shaped by widening prosperity and stability. Much work remains, but the arc of history reveals moral progress alongside material advances.

Vermont Embodiment

   Here in Vermont, though facing our share of problems like any community, we enjoy immense natural splendor, secure livelihoods, neighborly support and local governance allowing each voice to matter – as American a state as any. Staying rooted in gratitude for the foundational opportunities we possess empowers affecting positive change in areas still lacking. Avoiding perfection lets us build better, together.

    So rather than just tallying problems, we must hold hope grounded in how far we’ve come.  Our grandparents survived wars and deprivation unimaginable today. By their sacrifice under much darker times, we inherited a platform to carry on toward improving our quality of life. If we meet this moment with wisdom, future generations will regard our age as one more step along freedom’s road.

On The Horizon

    There is much work to be done. And in America, Vermont and at our best, no barrier has yet stopped diligent individuals from ever improving.

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