David Peat

190 From Certainty to UncertaintyThe Sleep of ReasonYet, in the years that followed, two world wars erupted along withcountless other armed conflicts, mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, theHolocaust, germ and chemical warfare, environmental devastation,and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Such events left many thinkersin a state of shock. Artists, composers, and writers asked how it wouldever be possible to make new works in the shadow of such horrors.How could they express beauty, joy, confidence, and hope in the lightof everything that had happened? Even science had become tainted. Inthe words of Oppenheimer, with the exploding of the atomic bombscience had known “original sin.” Supposedly decent people—physicists,chemists, engineers, and psychologists—have devoted their talentsto the production of weapons of mass destruction—nuclearbombs, rockets, poison gases, germs, and viruses, as well as the meansto brainwash, torture, and destroy the human personality. Politicians,bureaucrats, and generals have drawn up plans for mass annihilation,the destruction of entire populations, and ethnic cleansing.The greatest horror is that, after the devastation of two world warsand the constant threat of nuclear annihilation of life on earth, the oldpatterns of thought continue. Disputes are still resolved by violenceand war. In some cases violence is brutal and direct, as with the rapeand butchery of populations, in others it takes advantage of high technologyto deliver death at a distance with rockets and electronics. Itseems that even our most sophisticated science and technology are beingput to the service of our most primitive drives and reactions.Despite all our new knowledge, our science, our internationalcourts, the United Nations, and our ability to communicate globally sothat “nation shall speak peace to nation,” the terrible mess continues.Does this mean that reason and science are insufficient? Is the humanrace an evolutionary experiment that is now failing to the point whereit could well destroy both itself and the environment that supports it?Did human consciousness develop too rapidly to deal with the technologiesit created? As moral beings, are we doomed to lapse again andagain? Is there any way we can be saved?