APOCALYPSE
Our failure to adjust our cultural values to changing material conditions (brought on primarily by technology) makes our long-term survival doubtful.
Today, despite the
end of the "cold war" charade, there are still 50,000 nuclear
weapons in the world, enough to turn the earth into a radioactive wasteland
many times over.
But the institution of war persists, little changed from the days of swords and muskets.
That light we think we see at the end of the tunnel may be the flash of our annihilation.
Pollution, famines, epidemics, resource exhaustion, ozone depletion, climate change, biodiversity reduction, and waste disposal problems are all aggravated by ever-increasing numbers of human beings.
Yet the mere discussion of birth control is taboo in many parts of the world.
Old beliefs, which may have once served good purposes, can become pernicious in a new context.
At current levels of population and consumption, we are depleting the ecosphere faster than it can renew itself.
Yet it is almost universally accepted that the answer to all global problems is accelerated industrial output.
If we wish to avoid catastrophic ecological and social upheaval, we must make radical changes in the way we live, and in the way we perceive our role in the global ecosystem.
We can choose to lose ourselves in the crowd, mindlessly embracing its nihilistic values and lifestyles, as it sweeps us along in an orgy of mass extinction.
Or we can choose to take a stand and live with integrity, unafraid of new ways of living or radical forms of refusal that following our own inner truth might demand.