Astronomers believe there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, and between 100 and 300 billion stars in our own Milky Way alone. The sheer immensity is both humbling and beyond our modest comprehension. Yet increasingly, people can’t even take in the vast spray of stars cast across the night sky anymore, as that display has been veiled by the light pollution enveloping our cities. Thus, while much has been gained in our relentless technological trek, much too has been lost along the way, too.
With even the majesty of the night sky taken we tend to shrink in the dim light of man’s own making. By that weak light many people remain shaded in the darkness of fact-aversion, beyond the light of acquired knowledge and accepted science. And though all science is amenable to challenge, there is no light strong enough to penetrate blind denial or unquestioning allegiance. Accordingly, many see only right-wrong, light-dark, win-lose, here-there, yes-no, ME-YOU, a very brittle outlook, indeed. Even our political framework has been constructed into cartoonish either-or choices.
For decades the U.S. wrestled the Soviet bear for international primacy in a long and bitter Cold War. Finally, the bear and its Communist system succumbed, driven into the deep freeze of insolvency in 1989. Yet remnants of international Communism persisted, most stubbornly in Cuba.