You might have seen the cartoon: two cavemen sitting outside their cave knapping stone tools. One says to the other: ‘Something’s just not right – our air is clean, our water is pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic and free-range, and yet nobody lives past 30.’
This cartoon reflects a very common view of ancient lifespans, but it is based on a myth. People in the past were not all dead by 30. Ancient documents confirm this. In the 24th century BCE, the Egyptian Vizier Ptahhotep wrote verses about the disintegrations of old age. The ancient Greeks classed old age among the divine curses, and their tombstones attest to survival well past 80 years. Ancient artworks and figurines also depict elderly people: stooped, flabby, wrinkled.
All of this is to say the Tour de France is everyone’s golden ticket. Its automatic invitation is the main reason 18 teams vie for World Tour status. And for the four wild card teams that cross over from Pro Continental events to the big time, it’s a chance to pay all their bills and remain competitive in their smaller arena. The fact that it happens in July means the Tour is where business for the next year is conducted. It’s where all the cycling brands — bicycles, components, clothing, accessories — go to show off their wares and start talking about sponsorship for the next season. It’s where riders and their agents whose contracts are expiring secure their next deal.
Everyone is at the Tour de France — sponsors, potential sponsors, riders, managers, agents, fans, journalists, and more. No other race can say this.
My parents did not like emotional conversations. They did not say I love you. On parents’ visiting day at school, other kids’ parents left them notes that said “We’re proud of you!” My note said, “We hope you will continue to improve this year. Please read books other than the series, The Baby-Sitters Club.” The closest they had come to addressing the issue of emotion were the times they asked me, “Why are you crying?” By which they meant, Stop crying. And so I tried never to cry in front of them. I held my tears through dinner. I cried only alone, in my room, or on the phone with friends. It seemed to me that the heart was a dangerous territory for Chinese and so I kept the two apart. It was in English that said I love you to a boy for the first time, English in which I cursed aloud. In books written in English, the intricacies of feeling and mysteries of human existence were explored. It was in the love of this language that, early on, I found the determination to become a writer.
But sitting there in the classroom as a college freshman, staring at those three-hundred-some words that made up the Eileen Chang short story, everything I knew was torn apart. No story written in English had ever made me feel what this story made me felt. It was the most profound reading experience I’d had with short fiction, and the story had been written in Chinese. It was as though the two worlds I was used to traveling between had suddenly collided.
For those committed to the written word, there is a temptation to see innovation as a threat, to worry that the book will not withstand the bells and whistles of new and augmented texts. Will a burst of music or a celebrity narrator prove the fatal flourish that distracts us forever from the page in front of us?
Better to focus on what we might gain. As someone who frequently interviews authors on stage, I’m aware of the unique insight to a text produced by hearing someone read their own work; I’ve frequently re-interpreted a passage after such an experience. But that has had no impact on whether or not I’ll read a book by a writer I will never hear reading.
A world inhabited only by robots, their billionaire owners and a large and increasingly restive population is the plotline for countless dystopian fantasies, but it’s a reality that appears to be drawing closer. If we continue on the path we’re on, we will need to make fundamental choices about how to support human livelihoods and ensure equal participation in our economy and society. Most basically, we will have to confront the realities of vastly unequal economic and political power. Even if we manage to enact a U.B.I., it will not be nearly enough.
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian who, through his sporadic television appearances, has taken on the role of the sober optimist. He is a man who has studied history in depth and who is able to recognize its echoes in the present day. Whenever a television host tries to make a claim about the “unprecedented” nature of our current politics, Meacham is quick to point out a similar occasion in American history.
Because of this reminding tendency, it should come as no surprise that, for his seventh book, he has attempted to offer a message of hope for the future of the United States. He does this not by presenting an idealistic vision for what that future will look like, but by examining the trends of the past and outlining his idea of a national soul, pulling from a variety of thinkers ranging from Socrates to Thomas Jefferson. Ultimately, the national soul can be understood as the national essence: whatever it is that makes America American. This incorporates positive aspects of the national creed such as equality of opportunity and fair play, but it also includes the dark chapters of our history, such as slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans.