The Age of Multi-Impotency

When I was young, the cold war was underway and the threat of nuclear war hung over our heads like the sword of Damocles.  In elementary school at a naval base in Hawaii, we practiced walking to bomb shelters during the Cuban Missile Crisis and performing the absurdly useless ‘duck and cover’ maneuver.  At the time, I don’t recall being frightened or overly concerned.  I was a child.

As I got older, in the late 60’s and 70’s, the thought of nuclear war became less abstract to me and I began to seriously ponder the consequences and the probability of it occurring.  The potential consequences were, of course, catastrophic beyond comprehension.  

But as frightening as a nuclear holocaust seemed, the actual likelihood seemed very low (only later to discover that we came scarily close several times!).  And of course there was little or nothing I could do about it.  I felt impotent, but it didn’t really bother me that much.

What a difference a few decades make!  The world today offers up multiple nuclear holocaust types of scenarios, each with its own unique feeling of impotence.  There is global warming, artificial intelligence, growing authoritarianism and unilateralism, the new ultra-plutocracy, the loss of biodiversity, the proliferation of plastic pollution, and worst of all, the MAGA cult and its megalomaniacal leaders.

And while the probability of nuclear holocaust was perceived as rather low during the cold war, the twenty first century plagues are already inflicting massive damage on our world and clearly accelerating the march toward cataclysmic events.  

To feel impotent to impact an unlikely, though chilling, single scenario like nuclear war is one thing.  To regard so many encroaching perils and feel impotent to have any real impact on any one of them is almost insupportable.  The age of multi-impotency is upon us, and humanity hangs in the balance.