America's Untapped Can of "Whoop-Ass"

Human creativity is America's greatest economic resource. Our ability to come up with new ideas and better ways of doing things is what has gotten us where we are today. It has made America a prosperous and powerful nation. But all of that could change. Our country is experiencing unprecedented challenges that threaten our way of life.

Thomas L. Friedman observes in his new book Hot, Flat and Crowded that America has experienced a surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11 and the global environmental crisis. He calls for no less than the "greatest innovation project in American history" as a response to pressing environmental and social issues. He prescribes a "nation-building" initiative that will transform transportation and the energy industry as we know it. Friedman believes that America must assume creative leadership in resolving the issues related to clean and economical energy.

Richard Florida's national bestselling book entitled The Rise of the Creative Class offers an excellent description of where America finds itself. According to Dr. Florida's groundbreaking research at Carnegie Mellon University, America is in an interesting dilemma. This is a time of great promise in which we have an unparalleled opportunity to raise our living standards through our creative capabilities. But the opportunity could easily go unfulfilled because we have not completed a transformation in our social and economic systems that taps human intelligence, knowledge, and creativity. This transformation which is potentially bigger and more powerful than the transformation from the agricultural to the industrial age stands incomplete.

Over the past two decades, the number of people doing creative work in America has dramatically increased and has evolved into a group of approximately 38 million Americans Dr. Florida refers to as "the Creative Class." Creative Class people are an underlying culture that is open-minded and diverse and thus conducive to creativity. This group is a wealth generating machine that accounts for nearly half of all wage and salary income in the United States - $1.7 trillion dollars, which is as much as the manufacturing and service sectors combined. As impressive as this is, Florida believes that every American is creative in some way. Therefore, it's his observation that we have not even begun to tap into our creative potential. As Florida notes, "the great dilemma of our time is that having generated such incredible creative potential, we lack the broader social and economic system to fully harness it and put it to use."

Now we are going through a great economic shift that is creating severe stress and disruption. Our workplaces are changing and stress is rising as mental labor is becoming the force of production. Communities are transforming in ways that are wrenching to many. Again, according to Florida, "Our challenge is to build a broader creative society that can harness the creative energy we have unleashed and mitigate the turmoil and disruption that it generates."

Danger signs are rising in the form of rising inequality in our society exacerbated by the creative economy. Florida's research points to a troubling phenomenon. He has found that America is splitting into two separate nations with different economics, culture and politics. One part of America is traditional with older industries and relatively slow growth. The other is secular, cosmopolitan and wealthy. There is increasing anger among those traditionalists who view secular Americans as shallow and self-absorbed. Each side sees itself as the best America has to offer with the other being a hypocritical minority trying to impose its values. If this divide continues unabated, it will be virtually impossible for America to come together to resolve critical issues in a way that makes sense in the creative era. Florida notes that it will take real political will and imagination to bring our nation together to develop a vision of how to tap our creative energy. Unfortunately, if our country does not continue to build on our creative strengths we will fall behind to a world that is increasingly competitive and creative in its own right.

Friedman argues that a solution to the environmental threat and the best way for America to renew its purpose is for America to take the lead in a worldwide creative effort to replace wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation. According to Friedman, "We've gone from the "Cold War Era" to the "Energy-Climate Era", marked by five major problems: growing demand for scarcer supplies, massive transfer of wealth to petrodictators, disruptive climate change, poor have-nots falling behind, and an accelerating loss of biodiversity. A green strategy is not simply about generating electric power, it is a new way of generating national power."

Taken together, Florida and Friedman's books are a poignant call for Americans to focus on ways that we can leverage our creative capability. It may be argued that the issues we face are the greatest in our history. As Americans, we must heed the call before it's too late and take action. We have the creative power. What about an American can of "whoop-ass?" I'm sure we can create one!

Next: Pulling America Up By It's Bootstraps