Editorial September 29, 1997 Issue

What are today's driving forces?

Russ Gerber

Multicolored graphs and pages of numbers show up everywhere. In everything from news reports to school reports, they tell the story of forces at work in society. Forces, the reports contend, that are driving society. The economy, technological development, social trends, politics.

And yet whether we're scrutinizing a chart of spending patterns throughout a nation, or glancing at a survey showing the political preferences on a college campus, we shouldn't lose sight of what the numbers fundamentally represent. They are telling us what people have been thinking. Even what we call the driving force of a complex, multilevel economy ultimately boils down to thought-forces of confidence, fear, productivity, greed, stagnation, and so forth, contributed to by so many individuals.

Why is it important that we not lose sight of this fact? Because otherwise we may start taking it for granted that these forces are not mental but physical and external, out there. If we buy that, we've pretty much given up control of our lives. Like leaves on a tree, we might be peaceful at one moment, but we could be blown away by a sudden change in the environment at the next.

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