A Story of the Third World War: A Nuclear Comedy
b'By the 21st century it appeared that science was seen as the ultimate source of truth, that technology was the basis of a good life, that God was dead and atheism ruled supreme, that sexual pleasure had been liberated from childbearing and family life, that women could share power with men and that all truth\'s were relative and open to negotiation. The individual was seen as more important than the group and it was assumed individual creativity and happiness was humankind\'s legitimate moral highpoint. Many of those who embraced\\xa0modern society were unhappy how society\\xa0had become rampantly materialistic defining\\xa0success in terms of celebrity and the acquisition of expensive and sophisiticated toys.\\xa0They\\xa0had forgotten that for billions of the world\'s\\xa0inhabitants modernity had destroyed a\\xa0different notion of a correct and moral way of life. The pushback against modernity began to resurrect a world in which the manly man and the warrior were most admired, in which loyalty to one\'s tribe trumped loyalty to the individual,\\xa0in which the proper role of women was found in procreation and service to the family and in which the holy truth\'s spoken by the tribe\'s god(s) demanded obedience. Those on each\\xa0side of these different truths and ways of life began to demonize and dehumanize those on the other side. Fear and hatred replaced reason and understanding even in those societies that seemed committed to a modern "scientific" way of life. Increasingly all\\xa0felt threatened and saw themselves as the victims of the "monstrous dehumanized" other.\\xa0In those parts of the world which had never fully bought into notions of modernity rage led many to declare a holy war against the infidels. Those on all sides began to arm themselves with whatever weapons became availalble including a race for nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.'