The New Millennium

March 19, 2011

The 21st century has arrived, brash and violent, fearful and defeatist.  Or so it would seem.  In just over ten years, the character of the new century is being shaped by floods and oil spills, earthquakes and radiation leaks, wars and genocide, economic collapse, fear of government and government run amok.   Natural and man-made disasters, the pervasive trend toward polarized, uncompromising viewpoints, and the breakdown of the social machine have a cumulative affect on the world’s psyche as well as upon the individual at sea in the maelstrom.  Facing events of such magnitude and consequence can bring out the irrational in the most reasonable of beings.  Is God angry with us?  Is the planet turning on us?  Is this the end of our world as we know it?

Catastrophic events beyond imagination are piling up: tsunami in Indonesia, earthquakes in Chile and China, flooding in Australia, and the tragedy in Japan that continues to unfold in greater and greater waves of decimation. Hurricane Katrina devastated the people of New Orleans and their government failed to provide either succor or solace.  The earthquake in Haiti and the floundering response of the Haitian government thundered even louder the same message of death and disillusionment.   

The 21^st century is reminding us that though we have not mastered nature, our man-made powers of destruction are on par with that of the most destructive forces of nature.  Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico for three months, threatening an entire coastline and leaving hanging questions and fears of effect that project far into the future.  A nuclear weapons test in North Korea seems to indicate that the eccentric whims of a single man could bring the world order to its knees.  And the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant in Japan is capable of spewing radiation not only upon its own inundated people, but around the world.

As economies fall and governments are challenged, man’s systems for control, stability and prosperity are in question.  And the global scale of inter-dependence indicates that the success of one may inspire the success of another or peril for one may be peril for all. Riots in Greece, financial collapse in the U.S., Ireland on the brink of ruin, revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, Khadafi out of control in Libya-- all events that speak to the volatile and undecided state of being in the 21^st century.

And yet, despite evidence of interconnectedness, people are responding with vehement determination to take a side, even against their own.  Americans are Republicans or Democrats, Tea Partiers or Unionites, Christian or not.  Iraqis are Shiite or Sunni, the Sudanese are Arab or they are not.  Muslims want secular law or demand Sharia.  The distance between opposing opinions is not so striking as the vehemence with which each side insists that their view is the only tolerable view.

The birth of the new millennium was received with trepidation as the technological world and a way of life feared the possible annihilating effects of the Y2K bug.  The decade that has followed continues to rumble with dread, pulse with the terror of trials that cannot be averted, and spew the worst of men’s deeds.  Questions of the fate of society, of man, of the earth and even questions of the fate of the universe traverse the imagination as if issued by an ancient sibyl.  Has our hubris uprooted our fortunes?  Have we failed in our duty to the gods?  Is this the coming of the apocalypse?

And yet, this world has always been a difficult place in which to live.  All that lives upon the earth-- men and cockroaches, butterflies and finches, roses and switchgrass--all live according to what nature provides and according to what nature withholds.  The extraordinary diversity of life, its color, strengths, intelligence, and adaptability are all born of necessity.  Life pushes forward, extends, creates, evolves and supersedes in response to crisis and hardship; in response to the inhospitable and the seemingly devastating.   Western civilization survived Pompeii and mankind survived Krakatoa.  The multiplicity of nations survived the march of Genghis Khan and hope has survived the cruelty of men from Ashurbanipal to Stalin.  France and England disentangled from a hundred years war to march as allies.  Mahatma Gandhi proved that one man can make the world a better place.

So it may be that the 21^st century has arrived threatening and uncertain.  So it may be that the ensuing questions loom large.  There is one answer to serve as guide.  Constant even in a world wracked with tragedy, bandied about in chaos and subject to cruelty is the persistence of life.  And the persistence of life is hope.