What is the deal with the millennium? I understand that people think years ending in zeros are significant, so it follows that a year ending in three zeros is really significant. But for years I have heard people talking about the “arrival of the millennium,” meaning either that we’re going to have heaven on earth or that civilization will collapse. Either people are envisioning one heckuva New Year’s Eve party or there’s something else going on. What? And what happened the last time the millennium came around? –N.E. Buddy, via the Internet
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My feeling is it’s mostly media hype. Although maybe we should be more concerned than we are. There is, after all, the chance of a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan, and some think half the world’s computers will shut down due to the “year 2000” bug. But frankly I’m seeing way less millennial anxiety now than 30 years ago, at the height of the cold war. As for commemorating the millennium, as opposed to merely fearing it, what are we supposed to do? Celebrate a thousand years of progress? “Yeah, the electric light, that was a heck of an invention. And that Ottoman Empire –boy, those were the days.”
(1) A couple of passages in the Bible state that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
(6) So it’s bound to happen now.
