Last evening, we watched
Rebecca, one of my wife’s favorite
films. It has one of the best performances by an off-screen character in movie
history.
Life is like that. So many of the people who shape our lives
and the future of our country we have never seen, or at least we no longer see
them. On the other hand, we see far too much of the people who are currently
shaping our futures. We would prefer most of them as off-screen characters, preferably in cartoons.
Back to shaping our future, there is an old economic theory
we used to apply to urban economics. We called it ‘location quotient analysis.”
In economic terms, location quotient is a way of quantifying how concentrated a
particular industry, cluster, occupation, or demographic group is in a region
as compared to the nation. It can reveal what makes a particular region
“unique” in comparison to the national average. Some used it to estimate potential as well.
What I think about when I drive
through the Arkansas Delta is how some thinkers used to apply the location
quotient principles to sociological factors, i.e. estimating human potential. It posited how likely a given area
was to produce an Abraham Lincoln, an Albert Einstein, a Jonas Salk, a Mozart,
or a Robert Johnson.
Of course, the probability of success for any given area
depended on a myriad of complex and related characters. It always makes me
think, though, as I drive through areas of our country that the modern world continues
to neglect. I can’t help but wonder how many people like Harriet Tubman, Isaac
Newton, Martin Luther King Jr., Clara Barton, Fredrick Douglass, or Jonas Salk we may squander
through our neglect.
Oh well. Let's just build another aircraft carrier.
 |
I freed a thousand slaves. I could have
freed a thousand more if only they knew
they were slaves. - Harriet Tubman |
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