A couple of days ago I was talking to someone who asked me what I used to do before I was a minister.  He asked because his wife is a chemical engineer employed in water treatment and he knew I'd done something vaguely similar.  Observing that he thought his wife was anti-nuclear, he asked me if I would make the same choice of field given my time again.  It's a good question, and I think it cuts through the good/bad dichotomy towards something about being timebound.

I still remain convinced that, at this point in time, there is a place for a civil nuclear programme.  I may be in a minority, I may even be proved wrong, but that is my honestly held opinion.  However, if I was now 18 or 25 I doubt very much that I would choose that path, since the more future oriented paths are towards renewables.  It is a fact, that in terms of greenhouse emissions, nuclear energy is clean; it is also a fact that in terms of waste it has its own problems (though no one seems to get so bothered by car tyres, thermoset plastics or chemical wastes which present equally significant problems - my bias showing through here!).  It is also a fact that renewable sources of electricity are under-researched and under-developed; their environmental impact is not as yet properly worked out and we don't have anywhere near enough of them to meet our needs, let alone our wants.  Somehow or other we have to address this mismatch - and that could mean the radical decision to accept a very different lifestyle with less electrical/electronic equipment.  Less internet, less blogging - well maybe that'd be a good thing?!

The point is, though, not whether or not I'm right in my view; it's to what extent my views are 'timebound.'  My reading on historical methods last year raised this topic, something that emerged from the history of science.  Ptolomey's model of the universe was wrong  but that didn't mean he was a bad (poor or evil) scientist, it meant he was timebound.  Just because the likes of Copernicus, Newton and Einstein have come along since doesn't impact on the quality of his thinking or his integrity, it has just been superceded.

Is the same. at least to an extent, true for all of us?  The career choices I made at 18 and 25 were honestly made, based on a carefully thought out worldview (or as careful as any 18 or 25 year old worldview can be!) and I suspect that with the same choices and the same information I'd make them again.  They may have been 'poor' they may even have been 'evil' in someone's view, but they were mine.  If I hadn't been persuaded by God to follow the path I now do, I'm pretty sure I'd still be involved in some way in the safety side of the civil nuclear industry - possibly by now working for the regulatory body, and I would have done so with integrity.  But if I was 25 now, my future and knowledge would be different, and I think I would be more likely to opt for anorher industry.  That's not 'better' or intrinscially more 'good', it's just different.  Just because my decisions were timebound does not make them automatically 'bad' or 'good' just 'timebound.'

All this waffle - what is she on about?  I think I am wondering just how much of what we see as 'good' or 'evil' is 'timebound' - both in terms of chronology and our own 'life stage.'  Middle years are, allegedy, when we reflect and wonder - supposedly where narrow waist and broad mind swap places.  At 18 things seem clear and absolute, by 45 (or almost) questioning is becoming normative.  I am sure there are things which are 'wrong for all time' and 'right for all time' but the older I get, the more things seem to be in the murky middle ground.  Perhaps being the best equipped we can to make our choices is the key to balancing our timeboundedness with our integrity?