Several of these pieces, and portions
of the others, were written before the Berlin Wall came down.
And then, with the Cold War presumably "over," I put these aside.
I devoutly hoped
that they would be forever outdated, as humanity marched confidently toward
its "New World Order."
To my great regret, we find that these are
still timely. Albert Einstein's observation, alas, is
vindicated: "The unleashed
power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we
thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
Plus ça change, plus la même chose.
The overthrow of Soviet Communism
gave the world powers a brief season in which to reflect and devise an
intelligent means of establishing peace among themselves and with their
sustaining natural environment. That season is drawing to a close as
the old "modes of thinking" percolate up into the thought and
policies of world leaders. Now, as then, I am most astonished at the
plain foolishness of it all.
There seems to be
nothing to do about it except complain. As I used to say some
twenty years ago, and hoped I never would say again, "if someone has booked passage for me
on the Titanic, at least I can choose to go down with a bailing can in my
hand." (2001)
Introduction: A Bailing Can on the Titanic
(2001)
Toward a Truce with the Earth. (1989)
SDI: The National Sanity Test (1988)
Potlatch
(1988)
Sanity and
Survival (1984)
If Peace Were at Hand, How Would We Know It? (1989)
Strategic Defense --
It's BAAACK! (2000)
Nuclear Doctrine, Rationality and the Moral Point of View
(1986)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Armageddon.
(1996)
Andrei Sakharov and Edward Teller: Two Ethical Profiles.
(1996)
Remembering Who We Are. (1995)
When
Science Trumps Politics. The Case of Nuclear Test
Verification. (2001)
