The World Is Flat, but the question still remains, do we want to give up the scenic view for hardlife on the plains? After reading Thomas Friedman's economic take on the world I am still unsure of that answer, mainly because living life in a flat world means economic recession for American (the book was actually written years before our economy began to really crap out).
I give Friedman credit, as a diehard liberal I was preparing to aboslutely despise this book; however, I learned from it and it made me alter or at least rethink some of political stances. This also comes with a warning, anyone who thinks Bush will go down as the best president ever, maybe should steer clear of this book. Quite clear, another plantet perhaps.
I'll start with the downside, as somone who was recenetly laid off, being told that jobs leaving America heading overseas is a positive, boiled my blood. I understand that for the global economy, this amazing; but as an American not so much. We could take this as incentive to diversive and come up with creative new forms of technology, but we do not seem to be living up to the legacy Friedman had faith we would achieve. Instead, unemployment continues to dwindle, more Americans are living without healthcare, and foreclosures are at an all time high. Maybe Obama will be a Friedman fan and push American into the new and largely unexplored field of new green technology instead of the unsalvagable auto industry. We could get American jobs and pave the way in the environmental movement, but that's for Obama to decide...
Also, he makes some opinions that none of us want to hear, but are absolutely true. Our education system bites. Compared to our competitors (i.e. Japan & India) we need a complete education overhaul. Even as someone who always found themselves at the top of their c lass, I find myself lacking the education be doing what I wanted to be doing with my life. Forget science and math, they'll forever be ingrained in my head as "icky substances."
This topic leads me a tangential but necessessary rant. Friedman claims in order to play with the big boys and get back on our feet and secure our claim to superpower, we must worker harder than the rest. If that results in giving up vacation, staying late, taking on more, than so be it. This is where Friedman and I disagree. One of the most wonderful thing about being an American is that we have the freedom to be children (something that should be in
EVERY nation's constitution). What is the point of working yourself and your children to the bone if you make all this wealth and then no time to enjoy. Also, America is known for it's creativity because our children are given the opportunity to be children, to imagine and play pretend, and have whole summers of nothing but sprinklers, sparklers, and icepops. I think there has to be a limit and taking the child out of childhood seems crossing some sort of line.
All in all there is much more to this book than I could ever cover, or actually want to. He does get a bit repetitive a bit quickly, and he seems to be trying, albeit comically, to appear folks, but it still provides some ideas that make you think. Whether you agree or disagree we need more in our lives that cause us to stop and think and I give Friedman an A for accomplishing just that.
