Q: Some would argue that a humanity restored not through science but through love is our only hope.
UG: I still maintain that it is not love, compassion, humanism, or brotherly sentiments that will save mankind. No, not at all. It is the sheer terror of extinction that can save us, if anything can. Each cell of a living organism cooperates with the cell next to it. It does not need any sentiment or declarations of undying love to do so. Each cell is wise enough to know that if its neighbor goes, it also goes. The cells stick together not out of brotherhood, love, and that kind of thing, but out of the urgent drive to survive now.
It is the same with us, but only on a larger scale. Soon we will all come to know one simple thing: if I try to destroy you, I will also be destroyed. We see the superpowers of today signing arms control pacts, rushing to sign no-first-strike accords, and the like. Even the big bully boys, who have among them controlled the world's resources, no longer talk about a winnable nuclear war.
Even the arrogant, swashbuckling United States has changed its tune. It no longer talks -- as it did twenty years ago under Dulles and other cold warriors - of massive retaliation. If you read the Time magazine now, it doesn't talk about the United States as the mightiest, the richest, the most powerful, and the most invincible of all nations. It refers to it as "one of the superpowers."
---
(Excerpts taken from book: Now Way Out; page: 181)
No comments:
Post a Comment