The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) are this week. British conservative politician, Daniel Hannan, has reflected on the relative silence around the anniversaries here.
There have always been popular eschatologies, especially at the turns of centuries and millennia. The problem is that sometimes the eschatologies converge with reality! It's a sort of X-files moment where the vagaries of psychological perception are unfortunately justified. For example, when the Black Death swept Europe, people had a point in indulging in a culture of fear. In this case, nuclear weapons aren't the fear du jour, but they're still terrifying. It makes me think of a line in that novel Daniel Deronda, where the heroine realizes that world events which she's long ignored are suddenly perched on her doorstep and knocking...
As the commentator notes, nukes aren't the fear du jour. A culture of fear, however, continues.
ReplyDeleteThere have always been popular eschatologies, especially at the turns of centuries and millennia. The problem is that sometimes the eschatologies converge with reality! It's a sort of X-files moment where the vagaries of psychological perception are unfortunately justified. For example, when the Black Death swept Europe, people had a point in indulging in a culture of fear. In this case, nuclear weapons aren't the fear du jour, but they're still terrifying. It makes me think of a line in that novel Daniel Deronda, where the heroine realizes that world events which she's long ignored are suddenly perched on her doorstep and knocking...
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