Our Millennial Challenge

Abstract

The advent of a new millennium leads us, at the very least, to embolden the imagination. It is a marker thrown on the shore in the darkness of night while the river of history rushes by. We see no more and no less than what imagination allows, especially when it comes to our deepest hopes and most dreaded fears. This millennial passage encouraged extremes of expectation: the end of the world or the beginning of a new order. It is easier to indulge such speculations when the recent past is filled with either foreboding or a sense of great achievement.