Leibowitz and the Limits of Human Knowledge
by Mark Perkins
Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s science-fiction classic A Canticle for Leibowitz serves as a furious castigation of American self-confidence—and indeed of the self-confidence of the entire Modern West.
A century ago, the Great War tore European civilization apart. The self-confidence and self-regard with which European nations had conquered and colonized great swaths of the globe in the Modern Age collapsed amidst death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. Darker and more virulent incarnations of arrogance and ambition would rise from the ashes of the Great War to replace the blithe assuredness of Belle Époque statesmen. It took another half century and a second, even deadlier catastrophe to destroy the vast European empires and conclusively shatter European self-confidence.
The United States partook of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century imperial scramble and participated—albeit tardily—in both of the past century’s world wars. Inconceivably large numbers of Americans died in each conflict—over one-hundred thousand in the First and over four-hundred thousand in the Second World War. Still, the transformative impact of the wars on the fabric of American society pales in comparison with the change wrought on the European countries. Those states primarily involved in the two wars—England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (including the nations into which it was divided after the Great War)—suffered far greater casualties proportionate to their populations. Europe’s economic devastation, too, drastically outpaced America’s.
It remains a difficult task to measure the economic impact of the two world wars on all parties involved, including the United States. The difficulties related to the United States, however, are of a different nature than those of the European participants. In Europe, the problem is trying to comprehend and evaluate destruction on such an enormous scale. In America, by contrast, historians and economists continue to squabble about whether the wars constituted a negative or positive impact in the first place, because American industry profited as a resource for the combatant nations in the years preceding direct entry into both wars. In addition to fewer relative casualties and an ambiguous economic impact, there is also the simple condition that, apart from an isolated—though deadly—attack on the most geographically far-flung state in the Union, the wars never came to American soil. American cities were never fire-bombed, American fields and hills were never reshaped by millions of artillery shells. No death squads roamed our countryside, and although we sent citizens of Japanese origin and descent to concentration camps, we never transformed those camps into extermination centers. We were never invaded, nor was invasion ever even a credible threat.
Consequently, the United States suffered no comparative crisis of confidence in the aftermath of the wars.
A century ago, the Great War tore European civilization apart. The self-confidence and self-regard with which European nations had conquered and colonized great swaths of the globe in the Modern Age collapsed amidst death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. Darker and more virulent incarnations of arrogance and ambition would rise from the ashes of the Great War to replace the blithe assuredness of Belle Époque statesmen. It took another half century and a second, even deadlier catastrophe to destroy the vast European empires and conclusively shatter European self-confidence.
The United States partook of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century imperial scramble and participated—albeit tardily—in both of the past century’s world wars. Inconceivably large numbers of Americans died in each conflict—over one-hundred thousand in the First and over four-hundred thousand in the Second World War. Still, the transformative impact of the wars on the fabric of American society pales in comparison with the change wrought on the European countries. Those states primarily involved in the two wars—England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (including the nations into which it was divided after the Great War)—suffered far greater casualties proportionate to their populations. Europe’s economic devastation, too, drastically outpaced America’s.
It remains a difficult task to measure the economic impact of the two world wars on all parties involved, including the United States. The difficulties related to the United States, however, are of a different nature than those of the European participants. In Europe, the problem is trying to comprehend and evaluate destruction on such an enormous scale. In America, by contrast, historians and economists continue to squabble about whether the wars constituted a negative or positive impact in the first place, because American industry profited as a resource for the combatant nations in the years preceding direct entry into both wars. In addition to fewer relative casualties and an ambiguous economic impact, there is also the simple condition that, apart from an isolated—though deadly—attack on the most geographically far-flung state in the Union, the wars never came to American soil. American cities were never fire-bombed, American fields and hills were never reshaped by millions of artillery shells. No death squads roamed our countryside, and although we sent citizens of Japanese origin and descent to concentration camps, we never transformed those camps into extermination centers. We were never invaded, nor was invasion ever even a credible threat.
Consequently, the United States suffered no comparative crisis of confidence in the aftermath of the wars.
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