Article July 15, 2002 Issue

On the way to critical mass

By Tony Lobl

The First caller on Robbie Vincent's Late-Night London phone-in program seemed to catch the talk-show host by surprise. Robbie had posed the question, "How many kids are you going to have?" and the caller replied, "None. I couldn't bring another life into this world the way it is heading."

That was 20 years ago, and I was the caller. From my angst-ridden viewpoint, I couldn't see much hope of civilization making it through, let alone evolving into something better. I looked over my shoulder and saw a Nazi holocaust my parents had barely survived. I looked ahead and saw a nuclear holocaust just around the corner that maybe none of us would survive. I knew the harrowing stats on overpopulation and pollution. My emotions ricocheted between retrospective gloom and prophetic despair.

As they say, that was then, this is now. A lot of what I dreaded has not played out according to its advance billing. And despite the war on terrorism, the current nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan, intractable Middle East issues, and financial woes around the world, the view I have today is not despairing. Instead, I am looking for civilization to evolve progressively in becoming a spiritual civilization.

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