I guess that I’m not the most optimistic of people. I’ve explained here why human civilization may be heading for a 200 or 300 year setback, starting sometime before the end of this century. This setback certainly won’t be the end of humankind, nor of civilization; but as with the Dark Ages, it certainly will increase the Hobbsian character of life for the average Joe and Jane, everywhere in the world. I.e., life for everyone on the planet will be nasty, brutish and short.

After a while, maybe around 2300 or so, there may well be a Renaissance; hope will return, based not so much on technology or wealth as on wisdom. People will finally learn that greed and tribalism and aggression have got to go. Laissez-faire capitalism, as we know it today, will finally be seen for the abomination that it is; society will finally see through the lure of individual riches that it offers. World consciousness will finally take root, overcoming the tribal barriers and prejudices that have built up around differences in languages, customs, skin colors, body structures and religious metaphysics. People will share each other’s resources and be concerned about each other’s needs; Houston will be concerned with Cairo, Buenos Airians will think about Vladivostok, Brazzaville will offer help to Los Angeles. Too bad I won’t live to see it (neither will anyone alive today).

But for now, it’s just one more sign of social decay after another along the road spiraling downward. If you’ve read my Urban Thoughts section, you know that I’ve been watching trends in America’s inner cities and have concluded that despite all the signs of gentrification and rebirth, many neighborhoods are stuck in a downward spiral of lawlessness and disengagement from the mainstream system of social norms, education and economics. An alternate social and economic reality is being built there by the street gangs, around guns, narcotics and other forms of illicit entrepreneurship. I started writing Urban Thoughts in 1998. Now it’s eight years later, and too many of my predictions are coming true. The gangsta rappers are making lots of cash selling songs about it to kids in the bored suburbs, who ironically don’t seem to realize that this is real. I’m not sure where it’s going to wind up for this “alternate America”, but I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.

I don’t stay up with the latest mega hiphop songs by 50 Cent or The Game, but I can offer you a local news story that is similarly quite frightening. It’s about the life of Raynard Brown of Orange, NJ. Orange isn’t quite what I would call a ghetto. It is located just to the west of East Orange, Newark and Irvington, all of which do have areas with a lot of poverty, crime, and gang activity. But Orange seemed to be hanging on as a working class town. However, about a week ago, Mr. Brown was reported to the police for shooting a sawed off shotgun at someone in the street. The police arrived and chased him toward an abandoned house used by drug dealers. Brown went up some steps to a second floor, then turned with his gun just as Orange Police Detective Kiernan Shields arrived below him. Brown pulled the trigger and Shields died from the gunshot blast.

In one of the background stories published in the local newspapers to explain this tragedy, it was pointed out that Brown is a ranking member of the Bloods street gang. But what really got me is that Raynard Brown grew up in a stable, working class family, the kind of household that still dominates the town of Orange. He had both his father and his mother at home with him, and they both cared about his education. They wanted him to succeed. They got him involved in after-school activities, and steered him away from the “trouble” crowd. They followed the parental handbook; they did everything right. And yet they couldn’t keep their son from the grips of a social infection that hadn’t seemed to have reached their town yet, not in a big way at least. The dysfunctional world of single parent homes and welfare and junkies and “hoeing” that spawned the local Bloods and Crips sets seemed to stop a mile or two away from the Brown family residence. And yet, that mile or two, along with a caring family, wasn’t enough protection. Obviously, the infection is still spreading.

What to do? As my Urban Thoughts page says, I think that the forces behind this “infection” are extremely strong and will overcome the meager resources that our society is willing to devote to it (e.g., federal and state grants for anti-gang youth programs, job training, housing redevelopment, inner-city economic development, convict re-entry support, etc.). In the end, about the best we can do is to help those who want to get out of the bad neighborhoods to get out, by expanding things like the HUD “Move to Opportunity” program. This “infection” may just have to end like the plagues of the Middle Ages did, by killing off those who are most vulnerable. In the mean time, it will also take down some collateral victims, like Officer Shields. I wish that I was wrong about that. But at the moment, America seems too busy … too “Bushy” … to care.

It may well take 2 or 3 centuries for a revolution of wisdom to overcome all of this and bring about a Renaissance of Hope.