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When I first got back to Hawaii in 1998, after being on the Mainland for 30 years since leaving after one year at the University of Hawaii, what was striking was that everybody from the editors of the newspapers to every letter writer to the editors, all were obsessed and preoccupied with telling one person, the Governor, what he should do to make the state of Hawaii better, or at least work. Implied, in such advice, was the feeling that the people could do anything themselves to make things better -- as though all power, rights and capabilities, were vested in one person. That is the height of centralization, totalitarianism and disempowerment, that seems to have been reversed in the entire intellectual climate of the state now.

So while seeming to be a very innocuous proposal, the Innovation Initiatives of the Lingle-Aiona Administration, are really quite a remarkable turnaround and recovery from those days of despair and futility.

I think government, and politics, is less and less about control and majorities -- and more and more about who just has the will to make things happen, without asking permission from every other, if they can proceed with their initiatives. If people have to obtain permission and consensus before they can initiate anything, obviously, nothing new can ever be implemented, because that whole machinery of seeking approval and government guaranteed funding, is a sign that one is on the lagging edge rather than the leading edge of any developments.

Any society that wishes to be truly “World Class,” is not doing so in wanting to soak up more than its fair share of subsidies -- for segments of society indicating they are hopelessly troubled, which is the justification for such funding. Those pioneering the leading edge, have to underwrite and subsidize themselves -- because that is the chance they’re willing to bet on themselves. That psychology is very different -- and determines and reveals real world class winners from those who would like to be but have no idea what that entails and means.

So it is good that we entertain these possibilities now -- rather than being first in line begging for federal funds because everything is going wrong and therefore we need such help. While we may get the money, the damage to our psyche and self-perception, is crippling and retarding. We should not be proud of the fact that our representatives in congress can convince the rest of the country that we are the most hopeless failures -- and therefore need the most help, and then finance projects that fail even more spectacularly as convincing proof of that disability.

The measure of a truly successful society is that the people feel and talk of being successful people -- rather than the downtrodden losers and entitled victims. That is the feeling of being World Class and not simply as a promise some time in the future if we only receive enough money, enough help, enough respect -- from somebody else.

Longtime residents of Hawaii are often proud that nothing seems to change -- which is the weakness of cultures and societies, and not its strengths. Change is not the bad thing many, and especially the “institutions” would like to convince us it is -- so they can perpetuate themselves, even when we are ready to move up to the next step, and no longer require them. That is what it means to grow up and be more human than we were before -- which is the fulfillment of government and society, and not just the struggle for who has the control and majority -- which is a petty thing in itself.