Four Reactions to the Prevalence of End-of-the-World Logic: A Note to Kali

My sister, a single mother from Hornby Island, British Columbia, left her six-year-old son with me on a long weekend, while she went off in search of some well-deserved big city rest and recreation. I have no children, but embraced the task as a dutiful brother and aspiring uncle. Kali and I tossed around the baseball in the park. We walked the dog down by Jericho Park, and then took the bus to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. On the way home stopped at a downtown toy store where, after a fastidious search in and among the many cars and trucks, he selected an ambulance with which to ride the streets of his imagination. That evening, three events coincided that made me think about how the prevalence and credibility of logic is influencing our children and, of course, ourselves. Intimations of end-of-the-world Kali and I were watching the six o'clock news. The camera, during a story on the relentless carnage in Darfur, panned to the horizon where a mass of hungry refugees waited, eyes flitting about, anxious for the food being tossed over the sides of parked United Nations' trucks. The news reader, attempting to capture the sheer scope and horror of the hot sun on the bone-thin refugees, alluded to the scene as one that might come to mind when seeking to depict a sense of the end of the world. The camera played tightly on the face of one fly-besotted child, who was quite a bit younger than Kali, huddling frightened in the shade of his parent or guardian. Growing emotionally upset, Kali asked me if I could change the channel. As I did so, he, with the innocence of a child, told me, with a quiver in his voice, that if the end-of-the world were really near, we should pray or do something or warn others, so that could die knowing had done something. Now the playful and ironic shenanigans of the Simpsons replaced the lost, hungry, and dispossessed. We had alighted on an episode of the Simpsons entitled, The Simpsons Go to Church. Kali comfortably curled his feet up under himself like a eat on the couch. In this episode, Homer runs afoul of Reverend Lovejoy by placing a chocolate Easter bunny that he had dug out of a dumpster in the collection plate. To teach the Simpsons a lesson, Reverend Lovejoy begins to read the Simpsons the Bible from the beginning. The Simpsons predictably fall asleep. Each member of the family has a dream in which they become enmeshed in a biblical role. When the family arises from its Bible-induced slumber, they find themselves alone in the church. Recognizing that an indeterminate amount of time has elapsed, the Simpsons stumble out of the church. They immediately recognize that they have slept through the apocalypse. Good citizens like Ned Flanders have been raised up to heaven. All the Simpsons, except for Lisa, have been earmarked for hell. Homer, with his usual thoughtfulness, pulls Lisa back to join the family in hell. At first Homer is stimulated by what he takes to be the smells of a barbecue, but soon thereafter erupts with an agonizing and ear-shattering wail as he recognizes the origin of the smell. The Simpsons' jingle runs. The usual commercials appear, and the show ends. With a look of alarm Kali nervously suggests to me that if the end of the world is near would be well served by going out for a large banana split at the Dairy Queen. We do just that and Kali plays frenetically with the ambulance on the surface of the restaurant table. To put a cap on the day, I drift to my study to do some reading and lecture preparation. From my workspace I could keep an eye on my young nephew. Kali decided he would watch the supper time movie. That evening a movie, The Andromeda Strain, showed a small town in Arizona engulfed by an extraterrestrial biological manifestation which, once tinkered with by well-intended scientists and military sorts, threatens to melt down polymers and detonate the planet's nuclear arsenal. With just 34 seconds left until mutants and nuclear rain are unleashed on the planet, Dr. …

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