Yearning in the Age of the Nightmare

The author reprints his hard-hitting 1996 essay. He looks at the world around him, in New York City, where crime stats are down but people do not feel safe. Years before 9/11, he sees the rise of terrorism in the world, in Israel, at a Rome airport. The late modern world is griped by fear and a sense of darkness and anomie. A boy in Beirut fights because it gives him something to do.

The Age is characterized by lack of character. Observed patterns of behavior are nixed as stereotypes, so we communicate by buzz words and code words, signals and messages. “What were once nods of assent, agreements in principle, become convoluted contracts.” The horror of our age is not found in monsters of Hollywood invention but in the so-called “senseless” and “meaningless” acts we do not or will not name. It is an age we continue to inhabit today. Approximately 2,200 words.