I'm so full of love yet I'm sad every day
How can we keep on living this way?
Now we are in a war, people dying every day
With a little love, it'll all fade away
Can't we all be happy, the way it used to be?
Love one another and let the world be free
People are hating' more and more everyday
Understanding is gettin' slowly further away
Now what's gonna happen when it all comes to a head
There'll be no world to live in, cause we'll all be dead
So, why can't we be happy, the way it used to be?
Love one another and let the world be free
(Ike and Tina Turner Lyrics)
Album COME TOGETHER—1970
But, dear Ike and Tina, wherever you may be listening in and following the daily news of gloom, despair, and agony, you will understand why we cannot be happy. It's bad. How bad, you might say? Well, it's bad enough that the New Yorker ran a cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst last week that pretty much says it all. In the cartoon, we see a corporate head of what looks like a sales team of women and men. The standing team leader says, "In light of national and world events, we've repealed our no-crying-at-your-desk policy." (April 5, 2024)
That's right. It's that bad down here (or "up here," if the case may be). According to our own United States Department of State, we are facing concerns in the following issues:
- Anti-Corruption and Transparency
- Arms Control and Nonproliferation
- Climate and Environment
- Combating Drugs and Crime
- Continuing Terrorism
- Cyber Issues
- Economic Prosperity and Trade Policy
- Covid-19 Recovery
- Energy
- Global Health
- Global Women's Issues
- Human Rights and Democracy
- Human Trafficking
- The Ocean and Polar Affairs
Let me explain. Consider the word, ZEITGEIST. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines zeitgeist like this: "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time." Looking further, the Webster's Third International Dictionary goes on to offer the following: "the general intellectual and moral state or the trend of culture and taste characteristic of an era." And finally, in the sense of considering small nuances in the definitions, consider how The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language adds another subtlety: "the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation." Lastly, it is worthy of note that all three dictionaries offer the simple as a compound of two words zeit ("time") and geist ("spirit").
Looking at zeitgeist from the vantage point of the world's derivation, we may grasp the psychological significance not only of the word, but also a deepening sense of what is happening to us and the troubled world in which we find ourselves now.
But now comes the next question, once we crack the door open to understand that we are beset at this time by a spirit that is out of sight, but which colors not only our mood but also our thoughts and actions, the way we perceive and decide and act. Furthermore, we may understand that the so-called "spirit" is what we mean by the psychological term, archetype. Thus, we now bring our investigation closer home to our minds, our soul, our psyche.