Evening discussion

1972: The high water mark of modernity

London, 17 Nov 2022

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the last Apollo mission to the Moon—exploring its legacy for environmental consciousness and human self-understanding.

• A talk by Dr Richard McNeill Douglas, CUSP research fellow.
• With responses from Dr Claire Foster-Gilbert (Director, Westminster Abbey Institute) and Professor Will Davies (CUSP Co-investigator, Professor in Political Economy, Goldsmiths, University of London).
• Chaired by Professor Chris Baker (William Temple Professor of Religion, Belief and Public Life, Goldsmiths, University of London)

On 14 December 1972 Gene Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17, and his pilot Harrison Schmitt, blasted off from the lunar surface to begin their journey home. It was the last time anyone has ever set foot on the Moon. In the spring of that year, meanwhile, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, a report with ‘shattering insights’ about the future of industrial civilisation.

In this event, organised by CUSP and the William Temple Foundation, CUSP researcher Richard McNeill Douglas will explore the intellectual legacy of these momentous events from fifty years ago—and the surprising linkages that connect them.

Arguing that 1972 saw the high-water mark of modernity, Douglas will suggest we have been suffering from a fatal sense of incoherence ever since. Understanding the theological underpinnings of modernity is key, he will argue, to making sense of this condition—and breaking down the denialism that has forestalled action on environmental limits since they were highlighted half a century ago.

Join us for a lively discussion, led by Claire Foster-Gilbert (Sharing God’s Planet; The Moral Heart of Public Service) and Will Davies (This Is Not Normal; Nervous States).

Join us on a trip back to 1972. The year we said goodbye to the Moon, and hello to the spoon-bending powers of Uri Geller. The year we discovered the limits of the Earth, and were introduced to The Joy of Sex. The year science split apart from fiction, and modernity became postmodern.

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