A year ago we were all worried about the new millennium. It wasn’t exciting enough to pass from one century and one millennium to the next. We needed the threat of calamity to goad our adrenaline glands into giving us a little bump. Fundamentalists looked for a second coming, or failing that, at least an antichrist. Those who worship at the cyber church expected the binary code to crash and bring on a technical apocalypse.
New Year’s came and nothing happened. We all stopped holding our breath, then laughed nervously and told each other we hadn’t really put that much stock in those disaster scenarios anyhow. But if there’s any truth in the year 2000, it’s that time has speeded up. When no disaster struck in the first two or three news cycles, we stopped looking for it and thought it hadn’t happened at all.
If you don’t think there was a Y2K computer bug, maybe you should take a look at the NASDAQ stock tables. To think people felt silly on January first when their computers didn’t crash and then turned around and bought stock in Priceline.com. Unfounded belief in the technology stock bubble was the real mass hysteria of Y2K.
For those looking for second comings, we’ve got the Bush family moving into the White House again and we’ve got Hillary Clinton joining the club in the Senate. Of course, some folks may prefer to read either or both of those events as the emergence of the antichrist. I’m not a fan of either Mr. Bush or Ms. Clinton, but I don’t think either of them is evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil. There was no evidence of an apocalypse in the year passing away and I don’t expect to see one in the year to come.
Midnight Sunday is the real end of the millennium. I can’t grasp the end of a millennium, so I’ve been thinking about the end of the century. The 20th century was a time of great upheaval, because of technology. In many ways, the 20th century was like all the centuries before it, full of crises and problems of our own making, because we humans are no good at managing our affairs. In this last century, technology has amplified our fumbling to the point where our small-mindedness and stupidity can precipitate a Holocaust, a Great Depression and two world wars.
The problem with these kind of apocalyptic events is that they simplify – or maybe oversimplify – everything; good versus evil, life or death, heroism or knavery. An apocalypse, large or small, pulls us away from our mundane lives and sends us somewhere more exciting. You can understand why people might perversely wish for an apocalypse. When the Nazis are coming down the street, with that siren wailing up and down its two-note scale, you don’t have to eat your vegetables, do your homework, make that credit card payment or worry about your annual performance review. No more meaningless plodding through life. Of course, once a war or great depression is upon us, all we want is to get back to normal.
Next year, in all likelihood, will not be apocalyptic. It will be run-of-the-mill, workaday, full of small tasks and choices. New Year’s is a time to step back and measure progress. In the next year, we can improve our lives and our world, a grain of sand at a time, shifting the scales to a better and more just world.
Good luck with this important task and Happy New Year.
Why Not 2K?
A year ago we were all worried about the new millennium. It wasn’t exciting enough to pass from one century and one millennium to the next. We needed the threat of calamity to goad our adrenaline glands into giving us a little bump. Fundamentalists looked for a second coming, or failing that, at least an antichrist. Those who worship at the cyber church expected the binary code to crash and bring on a technical apocalypse.
New Year’s came and nothing happened. We all stopped holding our breath, then laughed nervously and told each other we hadn’t really put that much stock in those disaster scenarios anyhow. But if there’s any truth in the year 2000, it’s that time has speeded up. When no disaster struck in the first two or three news cycles, we stopped looking for it and thought it hadn’t happened at all.
If you don’t think there was a Y2K computer bug, maybe you should take a look at the NASDAQ stock tables. To think people felt silly on January first when their computers didn’t crash and then turned around and bought stock in Priceline.com. Unfounded belief in the technology stock bubble was the real mass hysteria of Y2K.
For those looking for second comings, we’ve got the Bush family moving into the White House again and we’ve got Hillary Clinton joining the club in the Senate. Of course, some folks may prefer to read either or both of those events as the emergence of the antichrist. I’m not a fan of either Mr. Bush or Ms. Clinton, but I don’t think either of them is evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil. There was no evidence of an apocalypse in the year passing away and I don’t expect to see one in the year to come.
Midnight Sunday is the real end of the millennium. I can’t grasp the end of a millennium, so I’ve been thinking about the end of the century. The 20th century was a time of great upheaval, because of technology. In many ways, the 20th century was like all the centuries before it, full of crises and problems of our own making, because we humans are no good at managing our affairs. In this last century, technology has amplified our fumbling to the point where our small-mindedness and stupidity can precipitate a Holocaust, a Great Depression and two world wars.
The problem with these kind of apocalyptic events is that they simplify – or maybe oversimplify – everything; good versus evil, life or death, heroism or knavery. An apocalypse, large or small, pulls us away from our mundane lives and sends us somewhere more exciting. You can understand why people might perversely wish for an apocalypse. When the Nazis are coming down the street, with that siren wailing up and down its two-note scale, you don’t have to eat your vegetables, do your homework, make that credit card payment or worry about your annual performance review. No more meaningless plodding through life. Of course, once a war or great depression is upon us, all we want is to get back to normal.
Next year, in all likelihood, will not be apocalyptic. It will be run-of-the-mill, workaday, full of small tasks and choices. New Year’s is a time to step back and measure progress. In the next year, we can improve our lives and our world, a grain of sand at a time, shifting the scales to a better and more just world.
Good luck with this important task and Happy New Year.