VOL22NO1
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-Theodore Roethke
SUMMER/FALL2000
KEVIN KRENECK
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE 21st CENTURY
BY MICHAEL PAUL McCUSKER
'/f doth not yet appear what we shall be '
-SAINT JOHN
"The sum total of human works. , does not equal, in all
parts put together, the achievements of the life forms of plant and
insect in a square foot of grass "
-PHILIP WYLIE (1968)
The 20th Century, as Douglas MacArthur imperiously
proclaimed the end of World War 2, the century's most titanic
event, is closed. Humanity by its own contrivance has cast itself
into a new century which as yet has no discernible trails into its
interior It is a vast empty space to be explored, a cosmos of time
yet to be filled with presence and experience Almost all of us
alive at its start will not be on the planet at its end unless life is
significantly prolonged — and even then, most likely only a few
will benefit.
The true Millennium this century ordains really started in
the middle of the 20th Century when humanity cracked the atom
It was also a moment human beings realized this cosmic power
they unleashed from its locks might be their doom
It was one of those rare moments that seemed as if
everything before that moment was inexorably directed toward it,
and afterward wll be measured from it, until some other great
cosmic mystery ovenMielms our perceptions
At that point history could have been renumbered. The
Mushroom Cloud was the end of the old calendar but might finally
be recognized a century or more up the line, as was the Christian
calendar first collated centuries after its acclaimed miracle The
Mushroom Cloud has supplanted the Cross as humanity's new
icon
Unlike the bicameral Christian calendar that contrives
a parochial split in history, each half falling away from the other,
the fissure of atomic energy is the true historical divide: Before
Atom ¡After Atom. Perhaps the infant 21st Century might rectify
the calendar and realistically age itself half a century in the
process, beginning when the 20th Century blew its gut out in
the summer of 1945
We change centuries and millennia; yet the millions of
years humanoids have been on planet Earth are hardly reflected
in the 3 millennia our age records Civilization is at least 10,000
years old; homo sapiens sapiens, our current evolution, is
perhaps 100,000 years or more: 5,000 years of witten record,
the rest unrecorded and unknown except for a scattering of
broken skulls and bone fragments, shards of chipped rock and
primeval cave paintings.
Whether or not the calendar eventually changes to reflect
humanity's real course through time, we are the first to cross over
into this newcentury/millennium, and probably will be thought
quaint by later arrivals in the century — but it means something
phenomenal to straddle two centuries and millennia; it makes a
significant difference to our lives which no one for a thousand
years can equal.
It seemed to take forever to get here We plodded toward
2000 as if it were a distant range of mountains barely sawtoothing
a far off horizon; suddenly racing toward this new century as if
in a spaceship to Mars, bursting through an invisible portal and
looking back, swftly moving past as our ancestors might have
trekked quickly over the Siberian landbridge between old and
new worlds and into an immense alien landscape
To encapsulate a century thought should probably be
given to the oscillation of time whirling the planet on a swing
around a star Each day is a marching foot stamping the ground
Time seems to our short lives a linear presence in a round
universe, much as the near horizon seems flat on a large globe
Time cannot be held even as long as a breath. Our corroding
hearts keep our time for us, ticking each hemosecond that
perfuses into yesterday
Prognosticating can be a grisly yet irresistible game;
neo-Nostradamus speculation is questionable because it roots
futuristic visions in the subsoil of current status quo Instead a
century opens up like a unexplored frontier, a clean slate with
manifold opportunities of Yin and Yang, though very soon every
one learns our shadows follow us through the portal
The new century promises all sorts of urgent and eager
possibilities, from horrifying to sanguine; earnest scenarios of
justice and liberty for all to auto/robotic distillation of the human
experience that might very well regard our biological past as
irrelevant — or perhaps a highly civilized galactic species might
discover our presence through microwaves of TV programs
beamed into the cosmos and disincorporate us for universal bad
taste
Nothing is more obsolete than yesterday's visions of
tomorrow, someone said; or as Niels Bohr facetiously remarked,
"Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." Yet hope itself
is an attempt to profit by prophecy A border made on time like
gridlines on an ocean chart has been irrevocably crossed and the
human inhabitants of this planet stare into unknown space aware
that the rest of their lives will be spent unraveling the mystery
The essential question is: What will it be like?
Scenarios for the future abound in extensive forecasts of
perpetuity: perpetual peace; perpetual war: perpetual progress;
perhaps, inevitably, perpetual life?
The most abundant projections for this brand new century
are cheerful, high-spirited and starry eyed Commercial auguries
are especially blissful; biotechnology returning humanity to Eden
through the beneficent efforts of megacorporations to recreate a
McDisney vision of paradise on Earth
Darker, much more gnm prophecies gloom the happy
face future beamed at us from all of our electronic orifices This
next century might be the ultimate wasteland of wanton human
profligacy — Worst case scenarios for the coming century
envision catastrophic possibilities of utter obliteration of planet
and life
We might poison ourselves into oblivion by saturating the
planet with such highly toxic materials we will no longer be able
to eat, drink or breathe without ingesting lethal pollutants we have
poured into the land. sky. oceans and nvers We now have more
chemicals in our bodies that were not there even a century ago:
we have altered everything organic inside and outside ourselves
'The nature that existed before man no longer exists." Karl Marx
said
We might bake like pies in the sun's oven because our
industry has tom large ragged holes in the thin fabnc of upper
level ozone that protects us from lethal ultraviolet rays intermixed
wth lifegiving sunlight The rays screened by ozone are exactly
those that are absorbed by DNA and cremate cells
We might this century or some other penod in the
upcoming millennium lose our oldest and most desperate
struggle against microscopic bactena and viruses At some
vulnerable moment a bacteria or virus of such intensity and
opportunity wll surge through humanity before it is able to defend
itself A wirldwde pandemic might possibly depopulate entire
continents of human life; at the very least tens of millions could
die within days.
We might deliberately or accidentally eradicate ourselves
with lethal viruses or chemicals we created to wipe out entire
populations of ourselves Some of these pathogens are designed
to infect everyone but an inoculated few others have been
produced for which there is no antidote or antivenom So-called
rogue regimes might have nothing to lose by releasing pathogens
into water supplies or the atmosphere. They might be used by
bio-terrorists v4io shrug away human cost with cavalier indiffer
ence Perhaps suicidal eco-terronsm by fanatically impelled
'divine inspiration’ will resolve to eliminate humanity. Or well
meaning extremists who believe the human population needs
serious thinning before it irreparably harms Earth; or that a
smaller population is more friendly, less hostile and hystencal-
neurotic. Or the irresponsible rapaciousness that underlies
humanity and fuels the omnipotence of those who would be
masters of the planet/galaxy or cosmos, might very well destroy
the species/planet in the biological equivalent of thermonuclear
war in their eternal struggle for supremacy
And of course we might reactivate the old hobgoblin of
nuclear holocaust and blast ourselves out of the universe, as we
almost did over a half century span, developing arsenals so huge
that a decade after the Cold War more than enough nuclear
weapons remain stockpiled to blow the planet to smithereens
many times over A real danger rests in reducing armaments to
a small enough level that will embolden minor members of the
Nuclear Club to let fly with their weapons — such as India and
Pakistan against each other. And nuclear terronsts wait for their
opportunity The axiom (which applies also to chemical/biological
agents) that what humans invent they use. should be a sobering
anxiety these precarious years ahead
Then again we might culturally self-destruct through a
fabulously modem way of virtuality by cyber war, breaking all
of the interconnections with which we are increasingly dependent,
eradicating our multicultural one-world civilization by the very
modem that created it.
Maybe this century Earth will be hit by a 'doomsday rock'
that might burst from outer space, as was erroneously (we should
hope it is an error) predicted a couple of years ago to knock us
off orbit in the year 2028
We might become so neurotic and paranoid about
everything we think threatens our well being and chances for
survival in the upcoming century we wll suffer psychological
meltdown Humanity spent the last half of the 20th Century in
fear of obliteration and the immense psychological effects are
yet to be measured — paradoxically the intense technology of
that somber period constructed an electronics milieu greeted
as a new dawning of civilization
Aside from dark fears and premonitions projected as
the logical and generally dreadful culmination of intrinsically bad
habits and calamitous decisions made by powerful and selfish
interests perpetuating only their owi menacing agendas, there
are prospects that seem benign, or at least less negative — such
as a growing though yet reluctant acceptance of homosexuality
as a natural form of human sexuality as old and endurable as
heterosexuality which is actually becoming a drastic problem
overpopulating Earth Homosexual love might very well be an
innate answer to fulfilling sex and intimacy wthout destroying
humanity wth insensate locust-like procreation
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