Big Think

Matt Bai: I don’t do well with questions structured around “should”. I’m not good at telling people what I think they should do. I think every American should – you know who can, and not everyone can. But I think there are a lot of Americans in the position to ask themselves, “How can this moment make my life better? How can change improve my life?” We spend a lot of time worrying about change. We spend a lot of time fearful about what it’s gonna mean for our . . . for us or for our children; for our jobs; for our standing in the world as a country; for our cultures and our values, right? There’s so much anxiety around communities. And I think we’d be a sort of more forward looking, creative, happier country if people spent time thinking about how can change improve my life? How can it improve my job? How can it improve my family? How can the Internet, or technology, or you know . . . you know new social groups . . . Or you know how does all of this change going on . . . changing . . . The local economy is changing. The regional economy is changing. How can it, you know . . . How can it make things better? What can it do for my children that it didn’t do for me? And how can we get there? And then I think we start to have a conversation about politics that’s a lot more productive. Because then rather than being . . . rather than it being about preserving the past, we start to think about, okay, how do we take advantage of what’s happening?

Recorded on: 12/13/07