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PARTISAN REVIEW
only human culture. And Richard Wagner, the composer of
Gotterdammerung,
the end of the world (not just of civilization), was also the
composer of
Parsifal,
a dream of redemption and a better world.
However enormous the losses and the damage of World War I, the
existing weapons at the time had their limits. The most dreaded weapon
of World War I, poison gas, was far from decisive in military terms and was
not used in World War II-except against defenseless civilians. The hey–
day of fears about doomsday weapons and the fate of the last men on earth
was in the fifties and sixties. These fears receded after that, perhaps because
there was increasing acceptance of the idea that even though there were,
and perhaps always would be, some crazy states, they would not commit
suicide. Or to put it another way, the assumption was that while the rate of
suicides among individuals in society seems to have been fairly constant,
the number of societies which have committed suicide has been very small.
The use of weapons by terrorist groups is a different chapter. There were
dozens of reports in the 70s and 80s about the alleged use or contemplated
use of chemical substances by terrorist groups in many parts of the world,
including the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, the Minutemen, Palestinian
terrorists, Huk terrorists, neo nazi groups, the Alphabet Bomber of Los
Angeles, and even the Animal Liberation Front in Britain. While many of
these reports appear dubious, there was little doubt that some of these groups,
or extremis t elements within them, were at least contemplating the use of
such agents. What should have caused alarm was the fact that there was an
increasing number of reports concerning minute, quasi-religious sects with
names such as "Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord," of which no one hac!
ever heard.
It
was precisely from such groups that the first massive act of vio–
lence came, the Tokyo subway attack in March 1995, and there is every reason
to assume that this event constituted the dawn of a new era.
I recently read a book by a well informed Italian author named Lorenzo
Pinna, entitled
Cinque ipotesi sulla fine del mondo.
Pinna is far more optimistic
than Nostradamus. who predicted that the world would come to an end in
the year 3797. He also predicted that around the year 2000 natural catastro–
phes would happen as well as political and religious changes which would be
the beginning of the end. Pilma mentions all kinds of threats from the cos–
mos, epidemics, lack ofwater and air, which, while real, do not seem sufficient
in themselves to cause the end of the world. His fifth hypothesis concerning
the dimming of the sun is probably billions of years away, and by that time
our descendants might be able to transfer their business, such as it is, to Alpha
Centauri.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Wistrich. He is
Professor of Modern European and Jewish History at Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
