To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz’s comments in “Doomsday Fears & Modern Life” [October 1971] on what he imagines to be my views are as provocative as, no doubt, he intended them to be. But I would rather not have those of your readers who have not seen my article, “Making the Future Safe for Mankind” (the Public Interest, Summer 1971), form an idea of its contents or judge its merits in the light of Mr. Podhoretz’s strictures since, for the most part, they are a little off target.
To touch on what may seem at first to be a minor point, I used the word “rational” (in talking of doomsday fears) to mean “agreeable to reason” where reason is founded on natural causes as distinct from supernatural ones. I believe this, or something like this, to be the accepted meaning of the term in ordinary use. In the context employed it should have been abundantly clear that the word was not to be extended to cover “scientific proofs.” Mr. Podhoretz’s firm assurance that “no proof exists that the end of the world is at hand” is therefore unnecessary. I should not undertake to prove scientifically that he would get killed at a certain time and place if he continued to stagger each afternoon across a busy highway heavily under the influence of drink. I would say, however, that unless he discontinued the practice the chances of his celebrating his seventieth birthday would not be high. In the circumstances, most sane men would regard my conjecture as reasonable.
Right or wrong, my argument was of that nature. Thus, current apprehensions are justified inasmuch as humanity is running an increasing risk in attempting to sustain the course of economic growth that began at least two centuries ago. (Putting it thus, incidentally, meets Mr. Podhoretz’s observation that “Prophecies of doom are more likely to put people to sleep than wake them up: why bother striving if the end is in sight?” For if there is time yet to “repent of our evil ways,” then we have a choice of action. In my assessment of the situation, there are measures we can still take to reduce risks.)
The rational basis for “today’s doomsday fears” were, in fact, summarized by me as follows:
Only since the last war have men succeeded finally in prying open Pandora’s box and, among other exciting things which flew out, was the secret of instant annihilation of all living things. Time, measured only in short years, will disseminate this sort of knowledge among smaller, poorer, and less stable nations, some of which are ruled by adventurers or fanatics. From this prospect alone one may conclude that the chance of human life surviving for another century is not strong. To annihilation as the result of human irresponsibility, from military mischance or bluff carried too far, must be added the chances of extinction of our species from uncontrollable epidemics caused by the deadlier viruses that have evolved in response to widespread application of new “miracle” drugs, or from some ecological calamity caused by our inadvertent destruction of those forms of animal and insect life that once preyed on the pests that consumed men’s harvests.
Now experts may indeed differ among themselves about the precise magnitudes and risks in respect to each of these things, but all of them would agree that before the 19th century there was no threat to the biosphere, no ecological threat to our survival, and no threat whatsoever of nuclear annihilation. How many today would say that there is no threat from any of these things? How many would say that the threat is declining?
I turn next to Mr. Podhoretz’s observation of a “clear eagerness of the vast majority of people . . . to acquire or hold on to the benefits of life in an advanced industrial society,” which he appears to regard as evidence in favor of economic growth. If Mr. Podhoretz were to observe me eagerly sawing and chopping up logs in my backyard he would, on the same logic, infer that I enjoyed the business. Further investigation, however, might reveal that the electric heating system had broken down, and that I had the choice either of freezing or of resorting to a more primitive form of warming my home.
From the mere observation that people buy goods with their money, and buy more goods as their income rises—that is, they do not throw away money or burn it—one cannot infer (a) that at a different set of prices, say one more closely reflecting their social costs, they would not buy very different amounts of the goods they currently buy (say, fewer cars and airplane trips and more house-room), or (b) that people prefer the outcome of existing economic institutions to any other conceivable dispensation using the same resources, or (c) that they are becoming happier over time.
Compare the Britain of 1951—before the automobile and “development” had made hideous our cities and suburbs, before television held them in a semi-bovine state up to several hours a day, before the cult of hippiedom, drugs, and commercial pornography—with the America of 1971. The air was then clear of auto fumes, the skies were not rent by aircraft noise, and one could stroll along the streets, hear oneself converse, mingle in the parks or squares, linger on in the cafes, or walk through any part of the city at night without fear of molestation. If not carefree, at least people felt secure. No one thought of looking through a peephole before cautiously opening his front door. Compared with the figures for America today, homicide and suicide were negligible.
I am inviting Mr. Podhoretz to become a little more skeptical about the advantages of economic growth in the wealthier countries of the West. For in 1951, the British were still on rations. “Real” per capita consumption could not have been more than one-fifth of that current in the U.S. today. And I am prepared to assert—without “scientific proof”—that the British people in 1951 were more contented and cheerful than are the American people in 1971; that life in general was, then, far less frantic, wearing, and frustrating than it is today. (Mr. Podhoretz may wish to contradict this judgment, though he will not of course claim to be able to prove the contrary scientifically.) As Peter Oppenheimer once said: “The hallucinations of LSD are as nothing compared with those of GNP.”
Finally, I cannot forbear to comment on Mr. Podhoretz’s “third alternative” in his last paragraph. It is one thing to assert that instead of evincing concern or alarm at what is emerging one can accept “modern society” and console oneself with the unheroic thought that although there may have been better societies there must also have been worse ones. It is quite another to commend it, and to do so with an almost touching humility. In Mr. Podhoretz’s words, this modern society is “. . . . in any case a viable possibility and a natural [sic] one: a poor thing, perhaps, but our own.” That last clause is precious. It conjures up the vision of a tired Anglican vicar speaking with sentimental loyalty of the old village church to the more restive among his flock.
I hasten to remind him then that he is speaking in and also about the most powerful and wealthy country in the world. A country having a military budget in the region of $80 billion; a country that, having but 6 per cent of the world’s population, uses up 40 per cent of the world’s resources; a country pouring about as much effluent into the air and seas as the rest of the world put together. It is also a country whose increasing affluence has been accompanied by increasing restlessness, violence, and obscenity, whose vast postwar expenditures, public and private, have succeeded only in making a wasteland of its cities. It is a country in which fifty-five thousand people each year are being killed by one another through automobile accidents alone, and ten times that number crippled. It is a country whose unparalleled productive capacity is currently engaged in producing more “expendables,” more “regrettables,” more “inimicals”—briefly more garbage, literally and figuratively—per capita than any other country. (Value judgment? Yes.) One could go on, of course, but why bother? For the gist of the matter is that this squalid and unforeseen outcome is the result of two hundred years of sustained material progress and scientific advance. In that sense it is indeed “a poor thing.” But to place upon it one’s benediction; to hug it to one’s breast? Surely not, Mr. Podhoretz!
Ezra J. Mishan
London School of Economics
London, England
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To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz’s strictures on the apocalyptic vision miss the point. Let us grant with him that there is no respectable evidence which proves that the viability of human existence on earth is threatened; nonetheless, viability is not the issue. What is at stake, to environmentalists, is the quality of human life. At the risk of being tiresome, let us recall some familiar facts of life in America today: every year, more than fifty thousand people are killed by automobiles; the Potomac River around Washington, D.C. is so polluted that you are warned to wash immediately if any of its waters touch you; almost every major city in the United States finds it necessary to broadcast smog reports daily; the Cuyahoga River burns. While this goes on, American industry and American consumers mindlessly demand the production of more and more superfluous luxuries, of which the SST is the preeminent symbol, which will accelerate the deterioration of our environment even more. If we deliberately slaughtered those fifty-thousand persons annually to propitiate some Moloch, we would be thought mad by men of a superior civilization; that we do so to propitiate the makers and drivers of unsafe, excessively-powered cars only slightly mitigates our madness. Who then is the dangerous madman, the chiliastic crank who foretells an unlikely doom, or (to cite just one example uninvidiously) the oil-consortium executive who demands that we rape Alaska to get oil on the Arctic shelf? One need not hold any brief for false prophets to recognize that they pose less immediate danger to American society than those who howl for more oil, more cars, more interstate highways, more asphalt parking lots. The cranks are perhaps even less dangerous than those who peddle the complacent view that we must “accept modern society, with its imperatives of restless growth, as a viable human possibility. . . .” Viable, probably; humane, civilized, tolerable? No.
William M. Wiecek
Department of History
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
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To the Editor:
Though I agree with much of what Norman Podhoretz says, I am not as confident of human survival as he seems to be. . . .
It is easy to demolish the utopian writings of an Alvin Toffler or a Charles Reich. But, on the other hand, to claim that the doomsday fears of today have no rational basis is an astounding thought. Perhaps someone writing in the pages of COMMENTARY will convince us that the studies of Harrison Brown, Barry Commoner, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and J. W. Forrester do not offer “persuasive evidence” that we are facing an environmental disaster and that our future life is in danger. In the meantime, I am afraid that Mr. Podhoretz’s pooh-poohing of doomsday fears will only contribute to the neglect of urgently needed measures.
L. H. Grunfbaum
Scarsdale, New York
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To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz says that “the doomsday fears of today have as much or as little rational basis as doomsday fears ever did, if by rational we mean subject to scientific proof. No proof exists that the end of the world is at hand. We do not even have persuasive evidence pointing to that conclusion.”
But it is not possible for a magazine like COMMENTARY to deal with this topic today because federal law, through the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s information-control regulations, does not permit . . . the dissemination of scientific data concerning nuclear reactions which are known to be capable of igniting the earth’s oceans and atmosphere in one single thermonuclear blast that could result in the literal fulfillment of Bible prophecies concerning the end of the world.
Of course, even if federal law which now prevents the common people of our nation from gaining access to reliable scientific data on nuclear reactions . . . were to be repealed . . . science would not undertake to predict just exactly at what time in the future such an event might happen. Nevertheless, modern nuclear science really has produced very reliable and trustworthy data on the subject . . . and it has completely eliminated any doubt that . . . the end of the world is surely coming at some time. . . .
Burnet Outten, Jr.
Cocoa, Florida
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To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz has written a convincing and thoughtful critique of some of the wide variety of doomsday philosophies currently the subject of too much mindless cocktail chatter and far too little serious analysis. As a social democrat, what concerns me is that politics, particularly Left politics, is becoming saturated with the religious fervor that views important political issues as moral ones on which the future of all humanity rides. The best examples of this to date can be seen in the universities, where some radicals have construed political issues as moral imperatives requiring immediate, and too often violent, action to “smash racism and imperialism” and to “liberate the university.” This political evangelism, which actually has a strong apolitical quality, is based, in part, on a deep revulsion against liberal institutions and rational discourse. It is, I believe, a profoundly dangerous aberration because it unleashes expectations and desires which cannot possibly be satisfied through the limited mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. The politics of apocalypse will ultimately produce desperation and fanaticism and will lead those who believe the end is at hand to choose the commune (at best) and the bomb (at worst) over the ballot box. Thus, when I recently saw young people carrying banners of Che, Fidel, and Mao while at the same time proclaiming a new socialist humanism, I was overcome with the truth of Ortega y Gasset’s observation: “Do not believe a word you hear from the young when they talk about the ‘New Morality’. . . . When young people talk of the New Morality, they are merely committing a new immorality and looking for a way of introducing contraband goods.” . . .
Mark W. Weber
Oak Park, Illinois
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Norman Podhoretz writes:
Far from demonstrating that my account of his position was “off target,” Ezra Mishan shows that I represented it fairly; he even singles out the same passage from his article in the Public Interest from which I myself quoted (accurately). That passage bears on the issue of whether the doomsday fears of today are more rational than the same fears which were experienced so often in the past. I am happy to note that Mr. Mishan agrees on what in my view is the crucial point: that no scientific proof exists that the end of the world is at hand. Mr. Mishan thinks that my assurances on this matter are “unnecessary.” Unnecessary? To him, perhaps, at least when he is pressured by criticism into more scrupulously nuanced formulations and more carefully drawn distinctions. Surely, however, it is all too necessary to insist on this point to a growing number of people like Mr. Outten who are under the illusion that a scientific case has indeed already been made for the proposition that the end of the world is in sight.
But, I am asked by Mr. Mishan and Mr. Grunebaum, what about something short of scientific proof? Aren’t the doomsday fears of today at least reasonable? And don’t the studies of Harrison Brown, Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich, etc. offer persuasive evidence that “our future life is in danger”? My answer is that every one of these writers, including Mr. Mishan himself, presents a distinct case which has to be examined with a skeptical eye before we can begin to make a rational judgment of whether and to what extent it is valid or responsible. Even without the help of such examinations we can already see that all these writers contradict one another on so many important matters that it becomes impossible to lump them together, in the fashion of Mr. Grunebaum, as the makers of any single case of any kind about anything. Commoner, for instance, in contrast to Ehrlich, seems to believe that it is not the growth of population, and in contrast to Mishan that it is not economic growth per se, but the production of synthetics which ultimately threatens the ecology. They can’t all be right, and it may even be that they are all wrong, and possibly worse than wrong. Most of us, for example, have been taking it for granted that the case against DDT is founded on solid evidence. Yet just recently Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in developing wheat strains, has contended (citing the words of the World Health Organization) that the “safety record of DDT to man is truly remarkable,” and has denounced what he calls “the vicious, hysterical propaganda campaign against the use of agricultural chemicals, being promoted today by fear-provoking irresponsible environmentalists . . . [and] doom sayers” (New York Times, September 21, 1971). Mr. Grunebaum is afraid that my attack on doomsday fears “will only contribute to the neglect of urgently needed measures.” If Dr. Borlaug is right (and an attempted refutation of his argument by Barry Commoner subsequently published in the Times struck me as very weak indeed), Mr. Grunebaum might better be worrying not about the neglect but rather about the taking of measures which are declared by the “doom sayers” to be urgently needed. For according to Dr. Borlaug, the banning of pesticides could do incalculable damage in the underdeveloped world where, “mostly thanks to DDT,” more than a billion people “have been freed from the risk of malaria in the past 25 years” with resultant economic benefits of many different kinds.
Contrary to what Mr. Grunebaum and Mr. Wiecek apparently imagine, I neither said nor implied in “Doomsday Fears & Modern Life” that we who are living today are not confronted with problems and dangers peculiar to this moment in time (though, as Mr. Mishan chooses to forget, we have also been spared many other problems and dangers peculiar to other times). What I did say was that many of the problems and dangers we face today are consequences of technological development, and that the problems themselves, along with the anxieties they inspire, are part of the price we pay for the benefits of technological development. Both Mr. Mishan and Mr. Wiecek go on at eloquent if tiresome length about this price, not to show that it is too high and can perhaps be reduced (which is what I attempted to propose), but to suggest that it is, in Mr. Wiecek’s revealing term, intolerable. In this sense their letters, which refuse to see any connection between the benefits of technological development and the conditions making for a “humane, civilized” society, provide a good illustration of what I had in mind when I accused people of their ideological persuasion of a philistine attitude toward “the gains in freedom of every kind—from want, from disease, from tribal coercion, from claustrophobia” that we purchase “through the sacrifice of other undoubted goods to the gods of advanced modernity.”
Mr. Mishan is reminded, he tells us, of a “tired Anglican vicar” when he finds me writing that the life we lead in the modern world is “a poor thing, perhaps, but our own.” Being at bottom a preacher (of the fundamentalist cast, I should say, rather than the Anglican), his mind naturally runs in the direction of churchly analogies, which is no doubt why he missed the allusion in my phrase to Touchstone’s famous description in As You Like It of the country wench he has decided to marry: “a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own.” The feeling expressed by Touchstone here is too complex, too laden with double ironies, to be described as a “benediction”—and I leaned on it because I wanted to express something similarly complex about the life to which we are inescapably married today. I am surprised that Mr. Mishan failed to catch the reference to Shakespeare, but I cannot pretend to be surprised by his failure to perceive complexities in the argument of an opponent. For it is just his blindness to complexity in discussing larger matters like the quality of life in advanced industrial societies—a blindness Mr. Wiecek seems fully to share—which accounts for the intellectually simplistic and morally unbalanced judgments Mr. Mishan is forever “inviting” us to accept about the life we live today.
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