Facts of the Matter
Facts of the Matter
After the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese foreign minister reportedly said, "I fear that we have but awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." The giant turned out to be technology, and the resolve was terrible indeed. The culmination was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the devastation of two cities. The Sleeping Giant
The Manhattan project that developed the atomic bomb in the 1940s consumed the efforts of the world's greatest scientists. Never in history had such a concerted and focused technological effort been directed.
Specific technologies historically have been invented and developed by the few, although all of us are exploiters as well as potential victims. Throughout human existence, technology of all kinds has been given to the masses by the few.
Despite the death and devastation that resulted from the atom bomb, the problems confronting the world have not been resolved. The frightening thought of a nuclear explosion by terrorists is enough to start the most steeled of us shaking. Equally frightening is the thought of the use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons to strike at cloisters of terrorists or their protectors.
As a human, I weep at the loss of life and the waste of humanity that hatred engenders, and I am appalled at the intensity at which it can flourish. It is not the ideology that feeds the fervor, it is the force of hatred itself that is the root.
As an artist I bemoan the ugliness of hatred and decry the destruction it begets both in the physical world and in the spirit of mankind.
As a scientist I am aware of the magnitude of energy released in a nuclear explosion, and understand how it works. I could probably build a device myself if supplied with the materials. That is frightening, and brings to mind the ease at which technology becomes accessible to lesser technologically savvy people with the passage of time.
It is human to create and use tools, and we all have the ability to create. Human potential is enormous, yet most of us are users and not creators. We do remarkable things when we focus and work together. We can build the atom bomb and send a man to the moon, but can we deal with hatred?
It is human to hate, using whatever technology is available to destroy that which we fear. Those who hate with enough intensity to kill will always find an instrument. Material technology merely provides the means to deliver more intense and more concentrated energy, to take more lives, and to do more damage.
My wish is that we could focus with the same intensity that we put into the Manhattan project on developing the tools to discover and treat the source of hatred. I don't know what form those tools will take or upon what sciences they will be founded, but I know that it is necessary and will involve an understanding of humankind.
I'm hoping the new specter of hatred that has been unleashed this season will not fan the flames to the point that we do something stupid. The fabric of civilization is woven with a very thin thread. Let's do what is necessary to drain the swamps that harbor terrorism but let's also do smart things and try to figure out why we are capable of such hatred and how to stop it.
We could all be a little smarter, no? Richard Brill picks up
where your high school science teacher left off. He is a professor of science
at Honolulu Community College, where he teaches earth and physical
science and investigates life and the universe.
He can be contacted by e-mail at rickb@hcc.hawaii.edu