Or, imagine a fjord sort of building with four fairly steep, severe outer walls. There’s a dramatic slit in each exterior wall, and four pathways lead (windingly) to the heads of four separate routes around the hidden central quad—one for walking, one for running, one for swimming and a fourth for rowing (in the winter, skating). The central quad is almost filled by a large glass cube with a carousel inside. The glass walls keep a fair amount of sound enclosed, so that the carousel can play its carousel music–children and parents from the neighborhood can be admitted (through an underground passage) during several hours most afternoons. Take a chance!

4.

It used to be that nearly all American children were reared as Christians or Jews. In the process they were given comprehensive ethical views, centering on the Ten Commandments and the “golden rule,” and God’s requirements as spelled out by the prophet Micah: “Only to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”

As a result American were not paragons; but they had a place to start. Today many or most children in the intellectual or left-wing part of the nation are no longer reared as Christians or Jews. What ethical laws are they taught? Many on the left say “none, and it doesn’t matter”—a recipe for one of the riskiest experiments in history.

The left, and my colleagues in the intelligentsia, need to come to terms with this issue. Rear your children to be atheists or agnostics—fine. But turning them loose on the world with no concept of right and wrong is unacceptable. You might well say that Jewish and Christian ethical teaching managed to accomplish remarkably little; but if you believe that, and propose to teach your children even less than the bare bones that proved (you say) so inadequate, then your irresponsibility is obvious. Choose the ethical code you like, but choose something and make sure they know it.

5.

Long ago, I wrote a novel (also a history) about the 1939 NY World’s Fair. My parents had been there; I’d been at the 1964 Fair as a boy. At the time (mid ‘90s) I believed the party line: it would be crazy to have a new world’s fair. I was wrong. A modern nation can’t operate unless the science world and the public are on speaking terms.

The public must pay the bills, and tolerate the long-term planning, that substantial science and technology projects require.

The sharpest, smartest young people must be excited about science. More than ever, every prospective science student has excellent reasons to do something else—go into law or business and be richer, into government and wield power, or into medicine, to be incomparably richer and to be treated with respect and admiration nearly everywhere. Only deep excitement can overcome obstacles like those. No world’s fair can do the job all by itself, but we’re crazy to sacrifice any tool we can bring to bear.

Jeff Haynes / Reuters

At a time when the population is threatening to fall apart into countless spiky crystals that have nothing to do with or say to one another, a world’s fair helps bring populations together and gives everyone something to think about aside from how much they dislike everyone else. Of course a new one would lose a ton of money; but we’ve never needed a change of topic and a stiff dose of intellectual excitement more than today. You can’t measure the value of what we’d gain, but it would be gigantic.