The long game favors our young people leaning in for progress

To the Editor:

I read with great interest the recent letter by my neighbor George Pratt [“A nation of political correctness and intellectual idiots,” The Altamont Enterprise, June 4, 2020] and I know of what he speaks regarding concern for a possibly bleak future but I have a different conclusion.

His quotation of Joseph Stalin is prescient (that Russia would never engage the United States military, because [the U.S. would] destroy themselves through their political and educational system), except that in the end the result was inverted.

It was the Soviet Union, not the United States, who proved to have “progressed” itself into the annals of history as a failed state. The U.S. has thrived and been the example of educational and industrial progress that nearly every other nation has favorably pointed to for the last hundred years or more.

My own perspective is informed by very fortunate experiences at home and spending time abroad, and it is clear that primarily agrarian societies have long trended toward enhancing the education of their younger generations to evolve, advance, or progress their societies.

One example is the great land grant universities that formed across the country in the 19th Century, opening up our national potential through diverse higher educational opportunities, including agricultural colleges. Another example is the hard-working people of our towns such as Mr. Pratt, who had the energy and vision to build our sturdy foundations, offering their hard work and asserting sturdy expectations of others.

On a day-to-day basis, our society’s advancement can be a sloppy looking process. But for every young person who doesn’t want to contribute or get involved, there is another working on a 4-H project or advanced-placement homework.

What might hurt in a broad sense may be the diminishment over time of traditional cultural practices, such the hands-on approach to working with the land, including difficult pressures on family farms. Over all, I’d say the chances are pretty good that the long game favors our young people becoming involved in our communities and leaning in for progress.  

William Little

Altamont

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