BTZ42: WvB's epigraph and Elie Wiesel

[Smoke Teff]

I was skimming some of the Weisenburger in advance of leading this next
episode, here. Was reading the full source for *GR*'s epigraph, which
source Weis calls "a little homily by Wernher von Braun."

WvB opens: "Today, more than ever before, our survival--yours and mine and
our children's--depends on our adherence to ethical principles. Ethics
alone will decide whether atomic energy will be an earthly blessing or the
source of mankind's utter destruction."

He says the desire for ethical action comes from a belief in A) a Last
Judgment and B) an immortal soul "which will cherish the reward or suffer
the penalty decreed in a final Judgment."


Reminds me of seeing Elie Wiesel speak maybe five or six years ago (with
all kinds of protests going on outside the building).

He said he has been persistently plagued by the question (from others and
from himself) of how WWII Germany, then the most well-educated,
culturally/technologically advanced civilization the world had ever known
would also be capable of producing such atrocity. And the pursuant question
of how something like that might be avoided.

He said the answer was ethics. Germany did not make them a compulsory part
of education, as all nations now must. Knowledge becomes is at best
worthless, at worst dangerous, without ethics.

Apologies if I've mentioned this around here before.
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