Re: What is your outlook?

Description: The 20th century, Gutmann believes, will be remembered as the age of global awakening.

Question:
Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about the way the world is headed?

Transcript: I am an optimist by nature. I would call myself a pragmatic optimist. And I am pessimistic today, right now, about the way the world is headed in the very near future. I see no good way forward in Iraq. I see a lot of opportunity that was open in this country being closed. I see a lot of the rule of law being violated. So I’m not optimistic about the near term; but I am optimistic about the future because we are a great constitutional democracy, and the world looks at us as a great constitutional democracy. And we have as much reason as the world to be disappointed in what’s happening today, but we’ll turn it around. I know we will.

Question: How do you think this age will be remembered?

Transcript: Well I think the late 20th century will be remembered as the global, you know, as a kind of global awakening. By that I mean since that there’s no longer a bipolar system of the, you know, of two great powers; but a sense that the United States – great, powerful country that it is – has to be a part . . . and has learned the hard way that it has to be part of a larger society of nations. The early 21st century, which we’re just beginning, I think it’s too soon to say how we’ll be remembered.

Recorded on: 7/5/07