Doomsday
Summary: Doomsday
Norman Podhoretz, in “Doomsday Fears and Modern Life”, writes about how the fear of the “End of Days” still plays an important part in our modern life. He compares both past and modern fears. He begins by giving an example about how fear people had about a possible nuclear war. But he argues that after sometime people stopped being fearful of the possibility of a nuclear war. Podhoretz points out, that fears of “End of Days” either appear or disappear when the people advocating it, the catastrophist, gain or loose power to convince people that the end is near. He argues that when the catastrophists lose power with one issue as in the example he is using about that of a possible nuclear war, they move to a new “End of Days” fear to exploit; in this case to the pollution movement. He summarizes their new theory by saying that; “technology…is destroying us all.” He critics how fast this new idea is gaining ground in every circle. Podhoretz points out that some theories that before were being ignored, now are the center of attention. Like those theories that say that the world is going to end either by flood or frost.
He introduces E.J. Mishan, as an example of a modern “catastrophist”, that believes the world is going to end by the use of pesticides and vaccines that we have developed. He argues that Mishan ignores the other theories of the past because they lack “rational basis” for them to be valid, and yet the modern theories, Podhoretz adds, that modern theories have almost the same concept of being guided by warning signs rather than in scientific proof. He continues on saying it does not make them any better than any people from the past using the warning signs to predict a possible outcome. He argues that they “are not speaking as scientist but as moralist and ideologues,” and that one does not need to be fooled by their claims.
Podheretz introduces Sir Peter that is at the other side of the issue that argues that the environment can be fixed by the creation of more technology that can fix the damage created by other technology. Podheretz points out that the price of technology is always high both for the environment and the impact that it has in our lives. He asserts that surely with technology we can “buy” our way out of problems, but it just creates problems in somewhere else. Podheretz gives some suggestions of how technology can be used to our advantage like installing devices in cars and airplanes to clean up the environment. Podheretz says that the damaging effects on the environment make the “End of the world” supporters more powerful, but he points out that their effort to “wake people up” is only “putting people to sleep,” is failing because people feel that they cannot do anything to stop the doomsday from happening. He also points out if we were to surrender to the claims of the catastrophist and declare a state of emergency our individual liberties would be taken away, and that’s why we should take what they say with the “greatest skepticism.” Finally he points out that there a third alternative is that is to accept modern life as it is; with “restless growth.” He concludes by saying that “to make a life is to strike a continuing series of bargains,” both with nature and with the past and future.