To be sure, the old adage that democracies don't declare war on each other may still ring true. And so, the transcendent challenge facing America today is not the challenge of political oppression, but the challenge of community. To do so would require a language of community. But, America has no such language. Unlike individual freedom, an ethos of community fails to radiate across the American landscape, as we have already discussed.
Alienation is too widespread and runs too deep.
For this reason, any effort by America to lead the nations of the world to 'a new spirit of community' would ipso facto be perceived as disingenuous and devoid of authenticity. This truth became vividly clear to me in ways I would have never expected almost fifteen years ago. Indeed, my interest in exploring the spiritual dynamics of community grew directly out of insights which I developed during my term as Senior Advisor to the Director of the United States Information Agency during the Reagan and Bush Administrations. During that period, I spoke on many occasions with foreign visitors who had come to America under the auspices of the Agency's Office of Private Sector Programs and Office of International Visitors. What I found most surprising from these discussions was that the majority of these visitors expressed a strong desire to see the homeless even though they had never before visited the United States.