This third issue of Conspiratio is devoted to the idea of appropriate scale or proportion. It was a persistent theme in the thought and writings of Ivan Illich from the 1950s on.
Once again, the threat of all out nuclear war has become a palpable fear. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the doomsday clock to one hundred seconds before midnight, that is, before world annihilation. Since the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, human self-extinction has become an ineradicable possibility. For this reason, it inaugurated the age in which “we also became totally impotent” — the first of Gunter Anders’ “Theses for the Atomic Age”.’ Continue reading >