There are no proofs against them, only reassurances which work primarily with those who wish, above all, to be reassured. For them the World Wide Web is a providential development at the dawn of the new millennium, a medium for salvation. This is the context in which to understand mass gatherings of people seeking, exploring, creating new identities in ever-more public venues. From the million-man march to the Promise Keepers to the Rainbow Coalition. The hype, media, soon commercial, is not the tail wagging the dog, but the tip of the tail of a very large dog, just now coming into view.
Apocalyptic time is episodic, as powerful as it is brief.
We would be a paltry generation if, at this crucial juncture in our global civilization, with all the crises we face, we met the passing of a millennium with a skeptical shrug and a nose to the grindstone. It is not every generation that lives through a millennium, even if, with calendrical juggling there are about three every thousand years. Why not make it a time of reflection, of imagination, of daring to create new solutions not by command from above but by mobilization from below. But in a time of roosters, owls are helpless, like straws in the wind, like liberals when the Nazis took over. If you are hunkering down to survive this millennium, you not only risk great peril, you miss great opportunity.