This provocative piece is published by the Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. According to its website, it publishes trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by their team of journalists.
According to this article, The United States may regard itself as a “leader of the free world,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list.
In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to 41st worldwide, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.
The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to The Economist’s democracy index.
As a political historian who studies U.S. institutional development, the author (Kathleen Frydl) recognizes these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.
I would like to end this blog by quoting Matthew 7:3 – “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? America has great potentials. However, before we spend billions of dollars preaching and enforcing freedom and democracy on others, it behooves us to first look internally and heal ourselves from the inside!