It is difficult to find a “first domino” in history’s big moments. Did Gorbachav’s appealing Peristroika and Glaznost bring down the Iron Curtain–or was it heroic individuals like Andre Sakarov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn exposing Soviet evil? Did the ascension of German Nazis launch the staggering annihilation of European Jews and non “Aryans” – or can we trace this horror to the rallying chants of an earlier generation of essayists animating Nietzsche’s “splendorous blond beast”?

If history is any barometer of human pressure, we are undoubtedly within one of history’s big moments. The cause can be traced with absolutely no accuracy. But the sensation of a world inhaling is unmistakable.

We are a world breathing in, retracting, reducing and, in some ways, regressing. When we recently exhaled, most Americans felt protected safely within our borders. Rich Western nations and poor third-world peoples all seemed to know their place. We in the USA once used trade tariffs to hold back the torrent of a cheap overseas products; today, the figurative and literal markets are flooded with offerings made in all the desperate Mexicos and Chinas. The USA once conveniently avoided facing the myriad edges of cruelty and aggression apparent in dozens of nations because our focus was on the nation of Communism.

So perhaps today’s dominos have already been decided. We are a nation alternately admiring the breeze or fleeing the wind of a rapid passage of these falling chips. We have a choice to exclaim with interest or pain how different our ethnic demographics have become in the past ten years, how different our job security is, how different our national economy is. Yet are we not also capable of steering the path of dominos yet standing?

Many point with accusing fingers; others embrace with warmth. There are reactionaries who agitate, “Close the borders!” “Raise the tariffs!” “Make English the official language.” Yet there are also moderates and progressives who exclaim to the recent immigrants, “You are as we once were,” who earnestly hope to accompany trade with improvements in human rights, who are excited about learning another language and exploring another culture.

As we inhale during this millennium’s close, we’ll feel a world of millions more. Radical and decisive decisions must be made to direct this stream of dominos. We can accept this challenge of adapting through understanding and care; or we can take the low road and react with the xenophobia of Hitler’s Fatherland. It is fear-inspiring, these changes and challenges facing Americans and our fellow world citizens. But we must replace this base fear with higher, rational humanity.

America and the world will endure and prosper only by heeding Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s premonition, “The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.”

John Elliott’s essay was first published on August 12, 1993 in The Gwinnett Loaf, Atlanta, USA  
© 2021 John D. Elliott.