Seconds to Midnight

When I lived in Kyoto, Japan in 1989-92, I worked at the Kyoto office of the Elmwood Institute, founded in Berkeley, California by Fritjof Capra, of whom I was a big fan after having read The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point, in the latter of which he writes about “the history of science and economics, highlighting flaws in the Cartesian, Newtonian, and reductionist paradigms which have come to light in the context of contemporary empirical understanding of the physical sciences. He writes that these paradigms are now inadequate to guide human behavior and policy with regard to modern technology and ecology, then argues that society needs to develop the concepts and insights of holism and systems theory to solve its complex problems…In the final chapter, Capra concludes that while the revolution is occurring, the decaying culture refuses to compromise, clinging to old notions with increasing tenacity; and the dominant social institutions will not relinquish their leadership roles to the new cultural forces. They will, however, inevitably collapse, while the developing culture will continue to rise and finally take over as the dominant culture. As the turning point advances, the awareness that large-scale evolutionary changes cannot be halted by short-term political manipulation gives us the most optimism for the future.” (-Wikipedia)

However, as W. David Kubiak, then a long-term Kyoto resident and polymath said, when I mentioned this to him (and I paraphrase), “The decaying culture could wipe out all of humanity before it collapses.”

Dr. Bandy X. Lee writes: “What we need is not appeasement through minimization of reality, but a way to gain the courage and the will to deal with an unsustainable reality. The Doomsday Clock, which now stands at 89 seconds to midnight, grossly underestimates the crisis of our moment. We need to begin with a more honest, New Doomsday Clock, that may be advanced to as close as 50 seconds.

“While the Bulletin [of the Atomic Scientists] has begun to acknowledge threats beyond nuclear war—such as climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence—it fails to confront the most central dimension of these crises. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called this, ‘man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man’, or the psychological dimension. In other words, humanity’s gravest threat is not external but internal.

“The failure to evolve psychologically is the true danger. The widespread denial and normalization of apocalypse, especially among political and military leaders, has now become a form of collective psychosis. Facing the looming catastrophes would require transformative change, away from the greater false beliefs and increasingly unfit leadership we have embraced.

“This is precisely the domain of psychiatry: it teaches us that the problems we perceive as intractable are not inevitable. They are often a reflection of our own unresolved fears, not of real potential or possibility. With self-knowledge and accountability, individuals and societies can reclaim agency. This insight, rooted in philosophical traditions since Socrates and echoed in Einstein’s call for ‘a new type of thinking’, can be our cornerstone for survival.

“Healing the world is no longer just a political or environmental challenge but fundamentally a psychological one. A ‘Psychotherapy for the World’ is proposed, aiming to interrupt humanity’s death drive and to reorient society toward wholeness and health…as Dr. Robert Jay Lifton stated, the machinery of war has outpaced our psychological maturity. The lesson is clear: while we have evolved scientifically, we have failed to evolve psychologically. We remain vulnerable to the same impulses that have always driven conflict—fear, ego, aggression—but now with catastrophic tools of annihilation…

“Ultimately, in order to draw ourselves out of our predicament, we need a way of structuring our society that promotes insight, compassion, and ethical concern for others. We need a new vision.

“Fostering global unity demands psychological maturity, social equality, and spiritual awakening. Only through integrated efforts can humanity transcend fragmentation and co-create a just, peaceful, and unified world…the central truth of the Atomic Age and the new Psychological Age [is] that we must choose unity, shared purpose, and healing—or face extinction.”

I agree. Homo sapiens’ history is 150-200K years. Primate history goes back millions of years—since the start, we lived in small bands, collaborative groups. Children were raised by the whole group, not single or coupled parents. Humans in modern society are far divorced from humans in their natural habitats. Can we use the inventiveness and creativity that are inherent in our big brains to reconcile modern living with the ancient values of connection and belonging? Extreme loneliness is as much a factor for illness as smoking ~50 cigarettes a day. We have an epidemic of loneliness, to the point that, in the UK, the government has created a “minsisterial lead” for loneliness.

In c.550 BC, Buddha said, “Consider the interconnectedness co-arising in all phenomena. Think of all the conditions that go into making a leaf or a raindrop…In that leaf, the whole universe is united,” as it is in every thing, every person. In. c.1999, President Clinton announced the Genome Project, which has yielded roughly zero benefits to date, because genes largely do not determine diseases. Most diseases depend on environment for the gene to be ‘triggered’, and only a small percentage of people have congenital diseases. Genes are turned on and off by the environment, the social context. No genes have been found that determine a mental health condition, either.

We’re under the influence of certain external factors that give us a certain view of ourselves, our society, our life and others’ lives. The idea that we’re separate individuals in control of our destinies is a myth. In today’s US, especially, we’re a result of a sophisticated, spontaneous social conditioning akin to the characters in Brave New World. As much as we’re told we’re separate individuals, we barely exist as individuals.

Beginning in utero, our culture distorts human development. Witness the rising tide of youth suicide, teens on up to ten different psychiatric medications. It cannot be genetic. Not only are there myriad toxins in today’s environment, but our modern culture is toxic.

Many religious strategists, meanwhile, take the route that human salvation lies in limiting, crucifying or simply setting aside reason in order to rejuvenate personal faith commitments. As Jason Bivens said, “Since the 1960s, a very narrow band of Protestantism has been sucking up all the oxygen.” Religion shouldn’t be some kind of “get out of jail free” card in politics. It behooves pro-democratic religionists to intervene, using the language of the public square, and avoid self-serving, theophobic hot takes (used by the likes of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins). Religion (specifically, Christianity in the US since 1980’s alliance of the Republican party with the Southern Baptist Convention) undermines human rights in government, and is the antithesis of democracy, forcing everyone to conform to its dogma.

During an April, 2020 White House coronavirus task force briefing, an official presented the results of US government research that indicated coronavirus appeared to weaken more quickly when exposed to sunlight and heat, and also showed that bleach could kill the virus in saliva or respiratory fluids within five minutes, and isopropyl alcohol could kill it even more quickly. President Trump then said, “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Pointing to his head, Mr Trump went on: "I'm not a doctor. But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."

In October, 2024, comedian Ricky Gervais, during a bit about social media’s influence on politics and the average intelligence of a citizenry, noted that bottles of bleach have big labels warning consumers not to drink the contents. He suggested, “Let’s take those labels off, right? for two years, and then have a referendum.”