Beyond Reason

For some years I have been warning publicly that we are heading into a third global conflict, and this, at times, led me to feel quite down about the prospects for humanity. This third global conflict is not simply a rerun of the disasters of the twentieth century, for before 1945, however terrible a war was and however many people died, the world would repair itself and in time the population of the world could be restored. With the threat of nuclear war and the reality of climate change, humankind has brought about the very real danger of our own demise.

However, when 2017 marked the 500th anniversary of the publication of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, which triggered the Protestant Reformation, I began to see some more positive parallels with our own times.

In those days they had the disruptive technology of Gutenberg's printing press, invented in the 1400s and spreading challenging ideas, especially when Luther, Wycliffe, and others translated the Bible into the vernacular languages. We now have the disruptive technologies of social media spreading messages that impact our thinking. The amplification of conflicting messages promotes widening splits that undermine community cohesion, and artificial intelligence is also automating the firing of weapons at speeds that make human thinking and intervention impossible. Inexpensive drones and precision weapons reduce the possibility of having any safe space, and computers can mimic human thought so that you cannot tell the difference—disruptive technologies in our time, indeed.

Half a millennium ago there was also a widespread belief that those in authority (princes and bishops) were utterly corrupt and did not have the interests of the people at heart. In our time, too, there is a profound loss of faith in authorities of all kinds because of the justifiable anger about widespread corruption, broken promises, financial disaster, deep unfairness, and the undeliverable prospectus