Opinion
Diabolic nuclear legacy
By Harry Davidson
It occurred to me while reading the lead article of this issue that Alaska’s nuclear legacy is littered with fragments of a disintegrating policy. How could such a thing as a ‘nuclear legacy’ be otherwise, when the very crux of nuclear energy is the sundering and tearing apart of the basic elements of the material world? To split an atom is to sunder and destroy it. In order to do such a thing there must be a profound absence of the sense of the sacred. Long forgotten is the memory of a Divine Presence and therefore reverence toward the Cosmos. If we live in a profane and God-forsaken reality with no moral constraints, then we will treat the world in a profane and God-forsaken manner, and we will ultimately treat one another in the same way.
The word “diabolic” at its root means “one that tears apart.” Could there be a more appropriate a definition of nuclear energy? In the spiritual order of things, to build on a foundation that does not
recognize the sacred is to ensure failure. If one builds a house on the sand, it will be washed away when the rains come.
There is a way out of our nuclear dilemma. We must go to the core of our understanding of reality. We must reexamine assumptions about the absence or presence of Divine intent. If Reality has no Divine intent then the Cosmos is not sacred, and reverence toward things is not only unnecessary, but would be an error. On the other hand, if Divine intent is the source of the created order then not only should we recognize the sacred in things, we must also demonstrate a deep reverence toward them.
We are talking here about the differences in attitude toward life that arise from a purely secular as opposed to a spiritual view. If the Cosmos is not infused and permeated with Divine Presence then it is nothing more then lifeless energy and biochemical processes, which can be manipulated and tampered with at our whim, with no regard to Original Purpose. This approach leaves us with the kind of nuclear legacy we now have in our own Alaskan homeland.
Almost every traditional or pre-modern understanding of spiritual reality adamantly declares and celebrates the presence of a Higher Reality that permeated and animates the Cosmos. Therefore almost every traditional culture possesses some form of reverence toward creation. Not so with us moderns. So I return to an ancient Greek word introduced in the April issue of Alaska Humanity News, “metanoia”. Unless we have a change of heart, unless we turn and proceed in a new direction, with a sense of sorrow concerning the past and present state of affairs, things will not change. On the other hand, if we embrace “metanoia”, and let it inform our inner life, we will change, and in turn our way of being in this world will change, and we will find a solution to our nuclear dilemma.
The environmental and nuclear dilemma are one in the same. They arise from the same lack of a spiritual sentiment. One might say that the absence of a sense of the sacred is really an absence of a spiritual understanding. It is a spiritual problem at its root, which has implications that ripple through every aspect of life. Once we begin to glimpse the magnitude of the problem and recognize it for what it is, there is hope: hope that we will wake from our secular slumber, that we will re-awaken to the truth of our own personal spiritual Reality and be healed. Only then can we hope to heal that which we have destroyed and broken.
Harry Davidson was born in Kodiak, raised in Southwest Alaska, and is now a business owner in Anchorage. E-mail: