I’m old enough to remember the CMC. For the first time during the cold war, my folks built a fallout shelter in the basement. That’s how frightened the adults I knew were then. They had been through WWII and all of it’s horrors but that really scared them. Frankly, the increase in random acts of pointless violence in the US and elsewhere is a lot more frightening to me than the possibility of nuclear warfare.
I’m old enough to remember the CMC. For the first time during the cold war, my folks built a fallout shelter in the basement. That’s how frightened the adults I knew were then. They had been through WWII and all of it’s horrors but that really scared them. Frankly, the increase in random acts of pointless violence in the US and elsewhere is a lot more frightening to me than the possibility of nuclear warfare.
Ack!!! Double post!
Well, I grew up in the post-Cold War world. I find it hard to believe that the world has ever been as dangerous as people seem to describe or remember, or how they see it now. It doesn’t help my personal perception that in the 90s, people’s ideas of doomsday was Y2K or something similar.
So, since there are really no such thing as the good old days, is there really such a thing as the bad old days?
Actually, there’s something to this.
In reading history, I am repeatedly struck by the observation that everybody believes that right now is the most important time ever. The world will change in our lifetimes. Big things are going to happen any time now, and we’ll be here to see it.
Sometimes, obviously, this is true. Somebody had to be around for the major hinge events – the signing of the Magna Carta, the posting of the 95 Theses, the launch of the American Revolution, the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and so on. But it’s more true to say that long stretches of time can go by without anything resembling a world-changing breakthrough or catastrophe.
That doesn’t change the fundamental egotism, though, of the widespread belief that we will be the ones to see The Big Event. How many doomsday cults recruit believers by saying the world will end in their grandchildren’s time? Doesn’t happen. “Jesus will be back in, uh, seventeen years,” says the charismatic 40-year-old leader. Seventeen years later, the leader makes excuses to the few followers who still have faith in him. Over and over again.
Simply due to the pace of technological change, we in the 20th and 21st centuries have been privileged to witness a number of major events that will resonate in future history. The pace of communication and the availability of information has put in motion new, irrevocable currents that hold as much potential for danger as for progress. It’s within the realm of possibility that some wild-eyed fanatic will stir up some Ebola, influenza, and smallpox in a beaker and succeed in wiping out 99.9% of humanity.
But then, that’s always been true, more or less. If the Tunguska object had been, say, fifty times the size, any remnants of civilization that had survived could be completely unrecognizable today. Or perhaps the Great Flu Pandemic that swept the globe towards the end of World War I might have been even more virulent, and could have killed billions instead of millions.
You just never know, as a broad reading of history will show. Me, I’m content to live my life as best I can. Seriously, turn off the TV and get off the anxiety treadmill. You’ll thank me.
Is the world all that scary now? I can’t be the only one who worries more about day to day troubles than impending doom, can I?
I missed out on all of the late, great, scare moments, since I was only 12 when the Berlin wall came down, and freshman in high school when the USSR collapsed, so wouldn’t you think this would seem really scary in comparision to what I’ve consciously lived through? It doesn’t really.
Sure, 9/11 was tragic and made for a scary few weeks, but people in other countries live through these sorts of events all the time without having weekly nervous breakdowns, so I’m not yet convinced that the bell is tolling, the end is near, or that the monsters under the bed are really going to materialize and eat us in our sleep just yet.
Geopolitics tend not to worry people until they’re directly affected by the results.
Coincidentally, I was lucky enough last night to hear an astonishing 90-minute radio documentary about the Cuban Missile Crisis (God bless the BBC), based on the actual Oval Office tapes that were kept at the time. It’s clear that the world really was on the brink of all-out superpower nuclear conflict: after Soviet communism collapsed, it was discovered that if the US had staged an invasion of Cuba (as the Kennedy administration’s hawks were urging), the Soviets in Cuba would have responded with tatical nukes, and the Soviets in Europe would have retaken Berlin. 13 days of pure terror, and though most people in at the time weren’t aware of the minutae, they were quite aware of how close they were to annihilation.
Anyway, things just got a little more scary.
Not to mention this further attack, this time in the Philippines.
Oops, that’s the wrong link. But there was a bomb today, as seem on this page: here.
I definitely remember the tension of the Cuban missile crisis.
I can vividly recall being in the 7th grade out on the playground at recess nervously looking up at the sky for any suspicious contrails.
Our school was about a half mile away from one Nike missile base and about 5 miles from another. It was clear to us that these were sure to be prime targets.
Then in 1968, reporting for my draft physical (pre-lottery numbers), watching the guys a few months older who were called up that day. They had to count off by fours. Then they asked everyone who was number four to follow a marine gunnery sergeant. They were drafted directly into the Marines. Very sobering.
True, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a white-knuckle couple of weeks and was the high point of fear during the Cold War, but I vote for 1968.
To me, the world (and in particular, America) has never been scarier. I honestly thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
(To be fair, it probably cannot realistically compare to Europe during WWII, but since I was not alive then, I cannot compare first hand.)
The Soviet Union under Brezhnev keeps the Cold War going strong.
The Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia.
The Pueblo (US Intelligence ship) is seized by the North Koreans.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution is still going strong.
The Vietnam war is in full swing. The Tet Offensive takes place. (with the famous photograph of the execution of a Viet Cong soldier)
Only a few years after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert is shot and killed.
Martin Luther King is assassinated.
Airplanes are being hijacked.
American campuses erupt in anit-war protests.
American cities are ablaze with race riots.
The Democratic National Convention is interrupted by riots and violence.
The summer Olympics are boycott by 32 nations protesting South Africa’s participation.
O.J. Simpson wins the Heisman trophy.
Nixon wins the presidential election.
(OK… these last two are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but…)
My ex wife was scarier than anything in the world today:eek:
The US government is secretly arresting Canadians who are passing through the country and deporting them to the middle east.
I think that’s pretty scary.
The world has always been this scary, just perhaps not for you?
Sense of personal danger or impending doom is connected hugely to who you are and where you are. In terms of “big scary things” I feel much more secure now than in the 80s when I read up on how to survive post-nuke and wasn’t allowed to go into town at Christmas 'cos there had been bomb threats.
I grew up in the already mentioned 80’s nuclear ansgt. But being Canadian I never felt as much of a target as the Americans (a kid’s false sense of security). I’m a little more stressed about things right now because I guess I also figured by the 80’s if the bomb hadn’t been dropped, it wasn’t super likely it would happen. I’m not so sure now.
I agree with Triskademus, the terrors of the western world pale in comparison to many others, from murderers and mutilators in Sierra Leone to rape squads in Bosnia. I’m sorry for your friend what an awful situation. But I have to comment on this,
Buy the way, if you own a diamond, you helped to pay for it.
In writing, it is hard sometimes to tell the tone of statements. If this was just said to show how we are all connected indirectly to atrocities then I’ll agree. If you were saying this to make one group of consumers feel guilty about something that they most likely had no idea was happening at the time of their purchase, then you are being unfair unless you also mention all the people who purchase energy, clothing, coffee, etc …
When I was in kindergarten and grade school (1963 - 1969) we used to have “drop drills”-- where the teacher, right in mid-sentence, would say “drop”, and we were all supposed to get under our desks as quickly as possible. I didn’t realize it at the time but I’m sure it was partly intended as a “duck-and-cover” maneuver in case of nuclear attack.