The 11th Hour
What were they thinking? The war to end all wars? The conflict that would make the world safe for democracy? Such idealism, such hope, such naiveté is hard to imagine in this jaded, cynical point in time in which we now live. Even before the ink had dried on the Treaty of Versailles, the seeds of its offspring were germinating among those who felt wronged and humiliated by the Great War’s sudden cessation. Unbelievable as it may have appeared in 1919, the world would be engulfed in an even greater, more costly war less than two decades later.
Looking back I am struck by the unmistakable symbolism implicit in the decision to bring the four-year conflagration to an end at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918. It was as if the arbiters of peace were trying to solemnize this moment of existential significance—this 11th hour for civilization—underscoring by its triplication how much the world had come to a point of no return. Yet most telling was what was left unresolved. By declaring an armistice instead of a surrender, hostilities were suspended rather than concluded, leaving much unfinished business to which later generations would have to attend. World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, conflicts embroiling the United States, Israel, Europe, and the Islamic World—all remain legacies of those whose 11th hour declaration still haunts us. One war may have exhausted its combatants in 1918, but we who yet survive remain hostages to their insecurities and to their mistrust.
It is 2021, and we still find ourselves in the 11th hour of civilization’s vulnerability. A mere 27 years after the armistice, the mushroom clouds that brought the Second World War to its horrific ending cast an ominous shadow that still darkens our planet. In short order a nuclear club was born, membership seized by those who joined our country in turning the energy of atomic bonds into mega bombs that, if ever used, could bring life as we know it to a fiery end. It was during the era of nuclear weapons testing that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists began publishing its annual Doomsday Clock, a simple yet prescient metaphor underscoring the magnitude of the threat under which we now live.
Those scientists initially set the Clock at seven minutes to midnight, changing it 24 times since 1947, yet never moving it out of the 11th hour. Intermittent optimism has been generated from test bans and arms treaties in the ensuing years, the Clock being set back in response to these agreements. Its earliest iteration? 11:43 p.m. in the early 1990s. Yet the specter of hypersonic delivery systems and bomb technology now in the hands of rogue nations, terrorist cells or individual operators has pushed the minute hand closer to the stroke of 12:00 p.m. As of this writing the Clock is poised at 11:58:20—a mere 100 seconds short of midnight—so great is the 11th hour concern of the current group of scientists keeping watch over our future.
The concerns that underlie our current 11th hour anxiety are not limited to atomic weaponry. Environmentalists have long brooded over the deforestation of the planet, the accelerated pace of extinction and the impact of exploding populations on natural resources and climate. It may not yet be the 11th hour for mother earth’s ecosystem, but the landscape is changing and the hourglass is emptying at an alarming rate. Even more on our minds is the impact of viral epidemics that have made us so painfully aware that we are surrounded by organisms we can neither see nor control. It is sobering to recall those that have wreaked havoc on our species since that 11th hour armistice of 1918: cholera, Spanish flu, polio, Asian flu, smallpox, Hong Kong flu, HIV, SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola, malaria, Zika, and COVID-19. Sitting atop of the global food chain and intelligence pyramid has afforded us no immunity from these invisible enemies. Yet each of us has been shaken by what can know can happen to our health, our children’s well-being, and our economic and cultural lives as a consequence of these viral assaults.
It is hard to underestimate what living in the 11th hour has meant, and continues to mean to all of us. The 76-year hiatus since our last (and only) unleashing of “the bomb” in war confirms the resolve of our leaders to prevent nuclear annihilation. Yet in those seven-plus decades we’ve played shell games with our weapons’ deployments, and games of chicken with adversaries we’ve been staring down across curtains of iron and bamboo behind which we’ve co-existed in perpetual stalemate. But at the end of the day do any of us think the danger we pose to each other has diminished in any significant way?
Our struggles to care for our resilient yet fragile ecosystem have pushed us into greater cooperation and co-dependency with those whom we share life on this blue marble orbiting the sun. But will our competing self-interests keep us from finding the common ground with our global partners that will ensure we will continue to enjoy breathable air and drinkable water? Will we soon, or ever reach effective solutions to the climatic shifts now making our world a hotter, dryer and more turbulent place for us to live?
And through all of the continuing battles we have waged against both persistent and novel viral assailants, we have found a way to put aside differences in sharing medical and pharmaceutical remedies and therapies. But have we become stronger, more resilient and more cooperative in this global struggle, or weaker, less adaptable and less certain of each other’s intentions and trustworthiness?
On this anniversary of the 11th hour commemoration from which our Veterans’ Day had its origin, it is sobering to consider what living on the edge does to us and brings out in us. While I am inclined to think we humans have always lived “as if” some end was near or some deluge was about to overwhelm, it seems a more valid assumption for us to make today. For today we find ourselves on a global playing field which has been shrunk and flattened by communication, transportation and technology. The fact we cannot avoid is that we are all in the same boat, or more precisely, in the same small spaceship called earth. What affects one of us sooner or later affects all of us. As was true for those in 1918 who tried to establish a league of international comity, we can either face our common threats and redouble our resolve to thoughtfully, carefully, and cooperatively address them. Or we can let the terror they arouse in our minds and hearts make us more fearful and suspicious of each other. The future will depend on which posture we assume in this 11th hour moment of our existence. My hope and prayer is that we will put aside our philosophical and political differences to face the crises that demand the best of our intelligence, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. Failing that I fear that our tribal inclinations may propel us down paths of desperation and paralysis not unlike those taken by our predecessors, not that long ago, when they unknowingly signed away their—and our--futures, on the 11th day of the 11th month of their 11th hour moment of decision.
