Motivation is a strange thing these days. For some kids, it seems impossible to motivate them to do any sort of school work, and why should they be motivated? Why should they want to attend the top universities in the world to make breaking discoveries in science, or participate in high level athletics? I believe that many of the youths in American can draw inspiration from nationalism.
Look back thirty years, to the 1980 Olympics. America had only recently suffered the Vietnam war and the Watergate crisis. In addition to that, we were fighting a cold war with the Soviet Union, a war that we felt we were losing, slowly allowing the red to spread throughout Europe. Our confidence was dwindling, becoming something we all looked back at with fond memories. In a speech Jimmy Carter gave in 1979, he states that our nation has always thrived on a “faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.” He then directly follows this up by saying, “our people are losing that faith.” American nationalism, at this point, was dead. But it would be revived by twenty unlikely heroes. These heroes were the members of the 1980 Olympic hockey team, consisting entirely of college kids that had never played together. By playing with confidence and nationalistic pride, these players managed to defeat the Soviet Union; the best hockey team in the world. They exemplified this amazing confidence that we, as a nation, were suddenly reminded of. We could win the Cold war. We were going to be okay.
This sparked a much needed movement of nationalism, inspiring people not to do things for themselves, but to do things for their nation. This ideal is something that has almost become extinct. American youths should look back at this great moment in history, and draw some inspiration from it.
As the nation we are now, we are not passionate enough to be a leading nation. We don’t have enough pride to stay successful. We should be waving flags with that fiery passion we used to have.
