There’s a phrase that exists in the American/English language: “It’s never too late to [fill in some goal or action].” I don’t know if similar phraseology exists in other languages, but its prevalence in today’s society is indicative of a mindset that Americans can do anything, even if it seems too late. After all, late as it was, didn’t the U.S. enter World War II and turn the tide, so to speak? Didn’t we come late to rocketry, but become the first to put astronauts on the moon? And I have to admit that there are a number of other examples.
BUT… all too many people fail to realize that there are just as many examples of “too little, too late,” and I have the feeling that, as a result of a society that has become ever more one of instant gratification, just-in-time supply deliveries, and the up-and-coming 3D print-it-yourself technology, we’re losing sight of too many areas where it may well become “too late.
In some areas, we accept, if grudgingly, that “too late” exists. If a child doesn’t learn a second language young, that child will never learn to speak the language without an accent. If you don’t master the violin by age 13-14, you’ll never be a concertmaster/mistress. At some point, it is too late even for a professional athlete to continue performing at a high level. In other areas, we don’t seem to get it at all. Remedial writing instruction for college students [except for foreign students who write well in their own language] is largely useless. Those skills have to be learned close to the time of puberty, yet universities pour billions of dollars into such courses.
The idea of it never being too late is more pronounced in socio-political issues. Gun violence at American schools, now at even grade schools and middle schools, not just colleges and high schools, is continuing to increase to the point that I have to question if it is not too late to ever reduce the carnage. With close to 400 million firearms in circulation, with popular opposition over any control whatsoever of who can use weapons and under what conditions, and a growing lack of self-discipline by a growing percentage of the American public, is there really any way the violence and deaths can be reduced?
Global warming is continuing, despite recent evidence of a slight decrease in solar radiation received by the entire earth. Billions of years ago, Venus and earth were more similar, until runaway global warming turned Venus into a hothouse torrid enough that lead can melt in places on its surface. Another study just revealed that the firn ice of Greenland has either reached or is close to reaching its capability for absorbing meltwater, and further increases in meltwater could lead to the melting of the entire icecap of Greenland. How long before it’s too late to save much of Florida and U.S. coastal cities?
In the end, there is a difference between situations where “it’s never too late”; situations where it soon will be too late; and situations where it’s already too late. But because of the human tendencies to procrastinate and to demand just one position, maybe, just maybe, in cases where there’s any doubt at all we ought to take the default position that, if we don’t do something now, all too soon it will be too late.
