The Neighbour of the Beast

A friend of mine looked over my shoulder this evening and noticed that my email account had 666 messages. Apparently it just says at the top of the page 'Andrew Wood (666)' and I gather that this number is known as 'the number of the beast'. Clearly, you could help me out by emailing me and, so long as I didn't delete the wrong number of emails, then I would be saved from this worrying fate....

This prompted me to do a little research, and using that mine of fairly accurate information, Wikipedia, it is a biblical reference which "scholars.....have speculated that the reference to this passage was a way of speaking in code about then contemporary figures about whom it would have been politically dangerous to criticize openly". I have a funny feeling that it has also suffered from some mistranslation at some point in the past, but that's another story. The idea of passages in the New Testament being subtle but pointed attacks at contemporary individuals is quite appealing, if wholly irrelevant to sustainable development. [Or is it?]

Reading the Wikipedia entry in more detail I've found parallels between the use of 'the Beast' to refer to godless kings and tyrants, and the way that 'the Man' is nowadays used to denote an unfair and heavy-handed system of tycoons, governments and police. Which puts a curious spin on the question "Man or Beast?" as might be asked of a hirsute and rather aggressive biped spotted in a city centre on a Friday night. Neither would be likely to be carrying an ID card.

Since I am neither a tyrant nor particularly hairy I feel confident that I am neither 'the Man' nor 'the Beast', though asked to choose which of the two I was, I have a feeling I'd probably go for Man. (Mind you, I am more hairy than I am a tyrant........) Anyway, here comes the undeniable logic. If the Man and the Beast are the unsavoury characters who control the ship in which we sail, and sustainable development is our aim, then what we need is not a nice, well reasoned argument promoting sustainable development, to which you or I would respond, "Fair enough". What we need is an argument that appeals to Man and Beast - that is "sustainable development will make you more powerful, more immortal, more able to control your snivelling subjects."

Then we might be in with a chance.

AW.