Last week I received, as a donation for the nonprofit where I serve as program director, several boxes of office supplies. One of the boxes was marked “1999.” Inside the box, there were several old elements, including diskettes, labels for diskettes, pencil sharpeners, pencil erasers, and even an agenda printed on paper.
Opening the box was like visiting a mini-museum of what life used to be only ten years ago, when Internet was not as fast as today, when phones were used only to talk and not to take pictures, and when computers included a slot to insert diskettes.
The box reminded me how much and how fast life and society changed in only a decade. Almost nothing of the box’ contents is useful today, because technology and workplaces are not what they used to be at the beginning of the century.
In fact, it will be unproductive and even insane to try to use in my 2010 office the elements I found inside that box. My computer does not read diskettes; I hardly use pencil or pencil erasers; and my agenda is an electronic one.
I don’t need any kind of analysis or study to show me how much things have changed during the past ten years. I know that if I want to have a productive office where I can work with efficiency I can’t do it know with the same elements I used in 1999, not even if those elements are in good condition. They belong to the past, not to the present.
I believe there is no need for any analysis or study to understand the country and the world have changed since 1999. There have been so many changes, so deep and so fast, that many social elements that used to work, such as law and public policies, now seem to be obsolete.
There is no doubt, therefore, that we need change and reform. It will be unwise to solve current problems using obsolete elements, in the same way that it will be unwise to equip a modern office with equipment from the last century.
Perhaps because they are afraid of the future, there are some who clinch to the past, living inside the box of the past and totally isolated from the present. That’s the impression I get every time I listen to some talk radio show hosts when they speak about immigration or health.
We need and we should debate what kind of reforms we need and how and when those reforms will be implemented for the benefit of the country. However, there is no debate about the fact the past is gone. The country and the world have changed.
I believe we need a new dialogue and a new debate, based not on an obsolete past (history is never obsolete and should not be excluded), but our present reality and our future challenges.
However, after listening to some radio talk show hosts and their listeners, I doubt such a dialogue exists today.