It’s often difficult, given the evidence all around us, not to be pessimistic about the future of the human race. We seem to progress at a rate significantly slower than we regress — or remain fixed in place, which is pretty much the same thing. The prime example, of course, is the early astronomer Galileo, who was able to discern scientifically that the sun was the center of our planetary system, as opposed to the Biblically derived belief that Earth was the center. For this apostasy he was imprisoned and threatened with death by the ecclesiastical authorities, which were then much more powerful than they are today – at least at the moment.
Galileo’s predicament illustrates perfectly that, while science marches on (however uncertainly), belief strives mightily to hold it back, lest it threaten any established articles of faith. Most of us dwell securely under the illusions that the earth we live on and the laws we live under are too fixed to be affected by our insults to either. It takes an astronaut, gazing down on Earth from space, to see it for the tiny orb that it is, suspended in the vast, profound blackness of space. Scott Kelly for one, during his year-long sojourn aboard the International Space Station, noticed the same phenomenon others have mentioned: the thin layer of “very, very fragile” atmosphere that supports all life on Earth. He described it as a “film over the surface, almost like a contact lens over somebody’s eyes.”
Looked at that way, a great number of the daily political, religious and cultural concerns that dominate our attention seem quite absurd and childish. The Epstein files, so-called, if they exist, are no doubt explosive, if not surprising; but how do they compare in importance to the probable death of the Gulf Stream? The kerfuffle over redistricting in Texas (and perhaps California, Washington, New York, et al) is an existential threat to our democracy, itself as fragile as our atmosphere; but how does it stack up in importance to the record-breaking temperatures of the oceans that breed hurricanes and cyclones? Any one of us could go on in this vein; but the point is that, for all our dark suits, sober miens and legalistic language, we’re essentially mice playing between the paws of a sleeping cat.
Last week I wrote about the experiences of a friend, Hideko Tamura, who survived the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima 80 years ago in August 1945. It was a world-altering event. But when a high school teacher mentioned Hiroshima recently to one of her classes, they looked at her, she reports, with uncomprehending, and even uninterested, eyes. It would be easy to blame them for not having learned that lesson from history. But the charge would hardly stick in the face of the cavalier way many of our politicians and even military leaders speak of the use or threat of nuclear weapons. The only one of them old enough to have any personal recollection of Hiroshima is Sen. Chuck Grassley. Clearly, we’re doomed.
Recently, during one of his frequent wars of words (skirmishes, really), President Trump announced portentously that he was moving “nuclear submarines” to strategic locations nearer to Russia. This was clearly chum for his base; all our submarines are nuclear-powered, and all cruise at strategic locations. I’m not sure the president knows the difference between nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed. (My favorite, named SSN Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), a fast attack sub loaded with nuclear-armed missiles, has been decommissioned. I often imagined the captain, giving the order for a launch of apocalyptic MIRVed missiles, intoning the priest’s words as he dispenses the host: “The Body of Christ…”)
My friend Hideko has spent her adult life telling her story, describing the horrors of nuclear warfare, and preaching for the abolition of nuclear weapons. That last genie clearly is not going back into the bottle; almost nobody is alive anymore who remembers a world before it became possible to incinerate most living creatures on the planet. I do remember, though, a speech by that optimistic idealist, Jimmy Carter, who dreamed out loud about a world without nuclear weapons. As he spoke, I found myself sitting in my truck with tears running down my cheeks. Now I have an almost identical reaction, for a diametrically opposite reason, as a blustering nincompoop moves nuclear-armed missiles around under the sea like chess pieces.
I don’t know how we can ever again prosecute foreign policy without the threat of the ultimate weapon. There was for a while, during the Cold War of the ’50s, a Woody Guthrie-style treatment of nuclear warfare titled “Old Man Atom.” It was removed from distribution for its anti-war sentiments (which to many sounded like Communism). Today, no one remembers, which means, if the truism is sound, that we are condemned to repeat the history of only 80 years ago. If that’s not grounds for pessimism, what is?