June 26, 2011 marked the 37th birthday of Derek Jeter. On this occasion, sports writer Michael Sokolove’s relentlessly dissected Jeter’s recent rapid decline as a player from his glory days a decade ago. July 4, 2011 marks the 235th anniversary of American independence. In its own way, that day in this anxious year marks a decline in power and influence of a nation that to the rest of the world appears to be past its prime as well.

In one sense, this glum comparison looks to be far fetched. All individuals undergo a cycle of growth and decay that no one can alter or halt. In contrast, nations can be viewed as perpetually young with the youthful and vigorous replacing the old and cautious as the latter group retires or dies off. The decline of a great nation thus depends in large measure on its conscious collective choices, not on some internal, ticking clock. If individual declines are inevitable, national declines need not be.

Still, there are some disturbing parallels between great athletes and great nations. On this point, it is instructive to read Sokolove’s account of the ingenious ways in which aging athletes seek to stave off the inevitable. Instead of keeping the eye on the ball and hitting it out of the park, they use lighter bats, take shorter strides, fiddle constantly with their stance, and guess, often in vain, where that next hard slider is going to come. But their power is gone, and a succession of weak ground balls replaces the hard hit line drives that manage to find the gaps between outfielders for extra base hits. Range in the field is diminished; fielders move in half a step to compensate for a weaker arm, but the total number of putouts and assists continue to decline. The weaker overall performance generates a new level of self-doubt that compromises whatever physical abilities remain. Players train to excess. Like worn-out tires, they are felled by injuries from which they cannot recover.

Read more at Defining Ideas