OLD PROBLEM, NEW MYTH; Y2K HYPE LATEST MANIFESTATION OF HUMANITY'S RESISTANCE TO CHANGE.

Byline: Laura Shamas

WILL civilization end as we change millenniums? No, but something special is going on: We've witnessed the birth of a new cultural myth. The Y2K bug is a very real technological problem, but the wild speculation that's part of Y2K cybermythology is a psychological reaction. Y2K, the cybermyth, has developed into the most recent incarnation of fin de siecle or millennium doomsday tales that manifest periodically throughout history. This time, television and Internet media have helped to sensationalize and promote its portent.

The growing Y2K pandemonium carries the weight of centuries of past dire predictions. Y2K is no longer just an imminent computer malfunction; it becomes an international symbol of technology's dominance over man. Since this glitch will occur as we're changing millenniums - giving it mythological resonance - a rational response, for many, has been replaced by an imagined one. It's time to calm down and separate the technical problem from its cybermyth counterpart.

Since ancient times, visionaries have asserted that the world was coming to an end. Sacred American Indian tales forecast that a great fire or battle would destroy the world. Iranian prophet Zoroaster Spitama, who lived in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., predicted a ``Last Judgment'' around 2200. His ideas influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Hebrew seer Daniel, circa 605-562 B.C., contributed the notion of individual resurrection through the process of apocalypse in the Book of Daniel. The time period of 1,000 years - the millennium - is first linked to an apocalypse in the New Testament in John's Book of Revelation, written somewhere between 68 and 95 A.D.

The end of the first millennium inspired elaborate interpretations of impending doom, especially among Europeans. Italian abbot Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202) was the first to connect apocalyptic patterns in the Old and New Testaments. During the Enlightenment, allusions to a new dawn began to manifest in political rhetoric.

America has produced its own unique set of millenarian mystics, including New England farmer William Miller, who spawned a major movement in the 1840s. When the world did not end in 1843, as Miller predicted, his 50,000 supporters were lampooned in the press; several Millerites then founded other campaigns, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Kellogg brothers' holistic health crusade.

In this century, David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, and the Heaven's Gate assembly near San Diego are more recent examples of American millenarianism. Y2K has grown into the latest vision of apocalypse to fascinate the American psyche.

In uber-techno 1999, Y2K - in addition to historical baggage - has its own psychological implications. Just the term, Y2K, promotes the vitality of the virtual world. In a subtle way, those three simple digits imply a victory of technology over language. The cumbersome, human phrase ``the year two thousand'' has been replaced by the more impersonal, computer-codified Y2K: It embodies the problem. Familiar phrasing is outdated; new technospeak reigns supreme. This contributes to Y2K's powerful emblematic mystique at an unconscious level - out with the old words and in with the new chips.

The various numeric associations of Y2K are also psychically provocative. What is it about 999s changing to 000s that scares us? At a basically symbolic level, there is a resonance of nihilism connected to the shift. Nine suggests abundance; zero registers absence. Fear of nothingness is related to fear of death; it could merely be the death of an era that we're witnessing, but we can't be sure.

Finally, there is uncertainty about the logistics of Y2K. When does the new millennium really start? It might begin Jan. 1, 2000, or in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 - another date with stark futuristic resonance. Confusion about the next millennium's go date has added to Y2K's mythic reverberations.

The Y2K bug might manifest in late 1999; the psychological effect of allowing computer glitches to mark the inception date of the new millennium makes us feel even more helpless. The notion of remaining in a limbo state for 12-16 months (``Are we there yet?'') while computers are updated worldwide is even less empowering. The resulting implication is that Y2K can't be defined or controlled. No one knows when it really begins. No one knows how or when the Y2K bug will end. It feels bigger than we are.

Add up all the factors - the historical legacies, the psychological effects, the logistical uncertainties, the expansive scope - and Y2K begins to feel mysterious, numinous and ominous.

The advent of the new millennium is like the ultimate New Year's resolution: It forces a reckoning ritual, a look in the mirror to see who we really are, and where we hope to be. Fin de siecle/millennium mythologies have long been popular with humans because, collectively, we need a reason to take stock of where we stand. These patterns recur so new generations can ask: What are our achievements as a society? What are our failings as a culture? Implied in a communal reckoning is a chance for change, an opportunity for renewal: We can make things better. Within the notion of apocalypse, there are always seeds of hope for healing and regeneration.

The current Y2K panic, centered on catastrophic endings, should be replaced by an attitudinal shift to composed, symbolic beginnings. The Y2K computer bug is real. But even if there are major temporary disruptions caused by computer glitches, the world is not going to end.

We're living in an extraordinary time, the ending of one millennium and the beginning of a new one. Some of us are responding anxiously to this era's end and blaming it on the Y2K bug. Our collective, cultural response to this epochal shift must be separated from the secondary computer problems occurring concomitantly. As long as we distinguish the Y2K doomsday cybermyth from its technical reality, we can purposefully respond to both, and begin the millennium with a new understanding.