MOST OF THE WEST UNDER CLOUDY SKIES.

Oswald Spengler, originator of The Decline of the West  also suggested that optimism is cowardice. His bleak premises sound pertinent today. In the Western hemisphere the negatives are abundant and confidence is on leave. There are enough reasons to feel like having been hit in the face by contrary winds, which are uprooting sets of beliefs. After having cleared religion from the table, the West no longer knows what to do with the rest: economic and political governance are on shaky grounds. The speed of the technological new age is also reshuffling the former existing, familiar deck of cards.

Paradoxically, the West has a harder time adjusting to change than non-Western countries and continents which catch up at a faster pace. Europe is burdened by a set of behaviorist patterns which weigh on its speed to adjust, recover or partake. Former rituals and memories stand against fast appropriation of innovation. It is no accident that it is mostly the West Coast in the United States which is in the vanguard of reshaping ways of thought and performance in all fields. After all, California is a state within the States. It is a marriage of minds between Asia and the West. Contrary to Europe, Asia (with a far longer history) is less challenged by precedent or by political and moral correctness. It banks on a fortune cookie model. While Europeans whine and create their repetitive Tetralogy, the Asians sweat it out, place their bets and don't look back.

The West is stuck in some jail of its own making. The negative rollback needs to be reversed, otherwise the self-fulfilling prophecy might force a door, which is already ajar. The biggest problem lies in the Western fear of revision (the Euro drama is a perfect-storm sample). Instead of always returning to the pessimistic outlook, the West must change this narrative of decay and address its addiction to rescue plans. The proliferation of start-ups elsewhere is a positive sign. They do not need the umbrella from higher up. They favor a new contrat social wherein labor becomes an equal partner and stakeholder.  Former coal miners have to be freed from their shackles so they become familiar with mobility and technological innovation. By locking up individuals in yesterday's economy, one aggravates the ills of the "pessimistic economy". The West is rightly proud of its social welfare construction. As long as it is not an alibi for "not doing", "not searching", it is worth defending. Unfortunately, it becomes too often a waiting room for missed chances rather than an incentive to reinvent oneself.

Most of the negatives which override the news cycle in the West are self-created. Governments and individuals alike do not question enough the ways in which the changing society operates. They become agents for stagnation and complacency. Western pessimism is a home-made product and if protectionism and trade barriers were to become the chosen therapy, the consequences will be dire. Too often stranded under the clouds of today's political discourse, opportunities for a reset might well choose a milder climate, in the Pacific. Optimism is not cowardice, it is "the stuff as dreams are made on ".