Lisbon 1755
On November 1, 1755, two hundred and seventy years ago, Lisbon was nearly wiped off the map by a powerful earthquake. This seismic shock had a significant aftershock in the European intellectual world. No thinker, starting with Rousseau, Kant, or Voltaire, did not speak of this event and its consequences. In the previous century, Leibniz had established that, nevertheless, we lived in the best of all possible worlds, exonerating God from the problem of the existence of evil. But after witnessing the destruction of Lisbon, Leibniz's thesis seemed ridiculous, and some wondered, ironically, if God could not have tried a little harder.
It was a very interesting debate that now seems over. A disaster like the one in 1755, rather than an intellectual upheaval, would merely provoke controversies about the structural deficiencies of cities or the problems of coordinating the various emergency services. 'God' is a proscribed word in public discourse, and for that very reason, it would be pointless to even make the effort to exonerate it for the world's misfortunes. Today, apocalyptic tales have no cosmic origin, but rather the product of human action, whether in the form of nuclear war, global climate catastrophe, or the risk of being taken over by our own machines.
For modern man, forgetting God seems seemingly liberating. The supposed divine omnipotence, with which one could not be held accountable, is replaced by the genius of humans and their ability to dominate nature and direct the future. The biblical God has been replaced by the god of progress, and the belief is upheld that we live in the best of all possible worlds because it is the world that allows us to develop our ingenuity and create our civilization. It is not just that the world can be improved, but that we improve it, despite being aware that we could also completely ruin it. The question is whether there might be a cataclysm that would shake this belief as well.
It's possible that this cataclysm has already begun to germinate. Until recently, it seemed that scientific and technical progress was linked to economic prosperity and democracy. Free societies fostered creativity, and that led to wealth, but today it's no longer so clear. The countries with the most dynamic economies (China, India, South Africa, Brazil, etc.) are authoritarian regimes or, at best, democracies with severe shortcomings. However, in Western democracies, the only thing that's growing is discontent and inequality, and in certain circles, admiration for the technical or economic miracles of these emerging countries is no longer hidden.
This has consequences. The possibility that, in the face of an economic or social crisis, people will seek out an authoritarian government that will act harshly and decisively is much greater today than it was a generation or two ago. Democracy is no longer the best possible system, but rather the one that, when faced with new challenges, responds with more bureaucracy and less efficiency. Freedom-killing and tyrannical scenarios are emerging that, naturally, will not be sold suddenly but gradually. What seemed impossible to happen may already be happening. But unlike Lisbon, today the problem of evil is fundamentally related to people, and we have long since ceased to have a god to blame.