It’s as if the country had just been to an action movie with a smashing-gashing-crashing finale. The lights come on, we walk out into the street, blink twice and wonder what’s for dinner and if there’s anything good on TV. Once again, General Humdrum conquers all. Norman Schwarzkopf’s streak into celebrity already has produced a typically American reaction: critics are beginning to say he’s overexposed, and comedian Jonathan Winters plays him in advertisements for an airline. The news is over, and America has taken a break for the commercial.
Is this all a matter of our notoriously brief attention span? Partly-but it seems possible, too, that we’re watching a change of pace in the march of events. After running at breakneck speed for several years, the world seems to be slowing down.
Consider a few examples. Just a few months ago, the Soviet Union seemed headed for some kind of smashup: there was talk of violence in the streets, the fall of Gorbachev, an Army takeover. Some or all of this could certainly still happen. But today the pace seems much slower: Gorbachev has struck another deal with Yeltsin and the reformers, and it will take some time to see how it plays out.
A year ago, Germany was transfixed by the prospect of reunification. Now it is trying to cope with the reality of re-unification, and that has put an end to the giddiness. The adjustments will be painful and, above all, slow. The banging of sledgehammers on the Berlin wall has given way to the far less dramatic business of trying to rebuild a wrecked economy. The same is true across much of East Europe. In Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, freedom came suddenly and reconstruction is taking time. And it’s not just a European phenomenon. In 1989 Brazil and Argentina elected new governments that promised new vigor; today both countries are bogged down in disillusionment.
It may sound a bit loony and astrological to suggest that there’s a fast-slow rhythm to the news, but in fact there’s a down-to-earth reason for it. Mostly it has to do with exhaustion. When people have been rocketed along by events as fast as they have for the past few years, they need time to settle down, take stock, consolidate. It’s simply not possible to live at fever pitch for any length of time. Inertia is another factor. Unless a country feels driven to desperation (Russia in 1917, Japan in 1945) or has a leader of extraordinary foresight (Sadat in 1977), the old ways usually seem best.
And so the war seems to have happened long, long ago. After all the tension and action and elation of the war months, ordinary life has reasserted itself. In the conclusion to the celebrated Japanese film “The Seven Samurai” (and its American remake, “The Magnificent Seven”), the triumphant heroes ride away from the village they have saved, wistfully aware that they are misfits. And the villagers whom they had taught to be temporary warriors plunge back into the real business of their lives, preparing the soil for the next crop. Something like that may be at work here. Last week General Schwarzkopf was given a different sort of honor: he was named a “Father of the Year.”
