2006 is here!
While for many of us, myself included, 2005 was a quite
fulfilling year, for millions of others, it was tragic and addled with misery. Survivors of the earth jiggling quake in
South East Asia had just begun to come to terms with what had happened, with the unfathomable reach of the disaster that
struck their nook of the globe, with surging high waters seeping away entire towns and villages and apocalypse watchers
wailing self-righteous “I told you sos” and Chicoesque “you had it comings”. We learned from
numerous reports on TV and in print that the globe is in fact warming and while beach front property in Vegas may not
quite yet be nigh, polar bears and Natives in the Arctic can now attest to the scientific realities of melting
territory and sinking homes. I’m no fan of religious prognosticators. I suggest, and am by no means the first to
do so, that it is an evolutionary trait to fear the end, and it is a testament to the creative energies of mankind that
we come up with colorful ways in which the world and mankind will bang, whimper and die. 2005 seemed to many to be the
little bell that rings in that old George Carlin routine: ding dong…five more minutes!
One of my
favorite pieces about the apocalypse this year (and yes, I will get off this topic soon) came from the sprite and
wickedly clever fingers of Tom Bissell, whose essay in Harpers was one
of the finest pieces of pop prognostication I have read.
OK. Now I’m through with that. On to
brighter things. Let me suggest, if I might, that for a bit light in the tunnel, that you take a look back at the posts from my trip to Armenia. I offer this not (entirely) for
self-serving reasons. It was a fine trip, and I enjoyed myself tremendously. But I put the link here so that you may
indulge in a bit of optimism that some of the recently dour and depressing places on the planet are undergoing the kind
of transformation that even George W. Bush would celebrate. Armenia is in the throes of great cultural change…an
entire people emerging from the dreariness of Communism to rebuild an identity and a country. Not withstanding the war
in Iraq and the sorry state in which that place remains, other parts of the world, notably India, China, Armenia, are
becoming global grownups where their people can now express themselves reasonably well, and have found the
“pursuit of happiness” a viable personal strategy. Things are going pretty well, overall.
Or am
I just an optimist? A friend of mine, a reporter at the Times, recently told me that he was a short-term pessimist and a
long-term optimist. By that he means that however horrible things might seem if you read the front page of the Times
everyday, there is long term evidence (and hope) that humankind is actually getting its shit together. Want to know
more? Then pick up a copy of Non-Zero
by Robert Wright. It is all there in back and white. It is, he posits, a long-term strategy of evolution that we all
get along…so long as we don’t kill ourselves along the way. Despite it’s somewhat annoying
intelligent designer subtext, Wright suggests that whether you are talking biology or human culture, we are evolving
towards greater complexity and cooperation. That’s good news, don’t you think? And if you don’t want
to buy the argument of a somewhat obscure scribe (sorry, Robert), you can turn to the ultimate voice of reason:
science. In this recent Charlie Rose interview,
none other than EO Wilson and James Watson (of biodiversity and DNA helix discovery fame, respectively) suggest that
mankind is, in fact becoming less violent, and it is written into our genes that we do so. Again, good news. If
there’s anyone we can trust its our genes.
So as we slip inexorably (and perhaps drunkenly) into
2006, we should, as O Henry once
suggested, Brace up, Benedict, and bid the blues begone.
So, yes, Happy New Year!