Secular Apocalyptists, Dystopias and Christian Millenialists.

[cali]

Secular Apocalyptists and Christian Millenialists share a lot of common ground, not only in their specific dystopian futures, but in similarities of psychology. Both look to the coming disastrous transformation of the social order. It's less fear than an avidity to see "the inevitable" come to pass. Both selectively see omens and evidence everywhere and in everything, to confirm that their beliefs are coming to fruition.

There's a glamor to dystopian visions and apocalyptism. There always has been. It's a projection of self into a world in ruins. And it speaks as much to those who are doing the projecting as to any objective evidence.

There seems to be at least a possibility that there is a hard drive function that propels apocalyptic thinking, whether it be in religious or secular form. It's a large part of human history: Just as all cultures have creation myths, so too do they have end-time myths.

Yes, this is indeed a response to the spate of dystopian writings recently on DU, and to the claim by some of the believers, that anyone not sharing in that vision, is in denial. One doesn't need to share that vision or project into the future or agree that we're in that future, to recognize that bad things have happened, are happening and must be vigorously confronted. Call it more of a be here now philosophy of dealing with the issues that are extant in our society and the world. And dealing with the present is actually, in my opinion, less of an abdication than the belief that the dystopian future is so inevitable, or so present, that one is left with the conclusion that nothing can be done to change it.

The above is not, alas, an idea I can take credit for. It's well trod ground in academic journals and books. One very good book with quite a bit about secular apocalypticism is, "End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America", by Daniel Wojcik. There are also scholars at BU's Center For Millennial Studies who publish on secular apocalypticism, as well as articles in many journals.

I am NOT saying that there is no legitimacy to making comparisons to dystopian societies of the past or to analyzing the path we're on now. But when taken to certain conclusions, there is often more to these comparisons than may be readily apparent.

[shadowknows69]

1. I've now been both in my life

I was wrong about the timing of Jesus' return about 21 years ago. We all thought for sure it was going off in the early ninties. I pray to any Gods that might listen that I'm wrong about my visions of doom now.

[cali]

2. It's worth tossing out

a prayer to any gods tuning in. As for the second coming, history is littered with Millerite types.

[shadowknows69]

3. I base my feelings of doom on intellectual reasons now at least

and studying socio political trends from the past. A good dose of dystopian Science fiction reading and viewing helps too. I do find my mind wandering back to the old "end times" sermons and scriptures on occasion and scaring the shit out of myself. Lucklily I then remember that's one of the reasons I left christianity.
S

[cali]

6. Well, that's one of the points I tried to make

in my OP; that a lot of what people use to justify dsytopian views isn't particularly objective and fits with the beiliefs of the reader.

[shadowknows69]

9. it is marginally comforting that we'll be the people

that other run screaming to in case it does go down because we'll then become "the experts" on it lol. I want to go on record right now to say that if the world does end I have no fucking idea what to do either so don't call me.

[mrcheerful]

4. What I find odd is how this started getting off the ground in the early 70's

and how these lunatics were running around claiming the anti Christ was going to be a big computer that used the code 666 to bring about dooms day. This was before micro chips and said computer was already built in a governmental building about the size of the empire state building. But then isn't that really history? Seems every few hundred years man kind goes on a end of the world freak out yet time after time they are found to be foolish superstitious dopes that listened to false prophets.

[shadowknows69]

5. That's actually the part that still gets to me a little

cause you have to admit that the technology to do the whole "mark" thing is already here. It seems to be one prophecy about the future they may have gotten slightly accurate. I suppose they could just as well have been talking about the tatoo you got when you joined a particular sect that they thought was going to take over the world in the name of "Satan" or whatever. Even if I had never read revelations I don't think I'd take too kindly to the whole "bar code on the skin" thing.

edit to add: I don't really consider myself a superstitious dope. Have you never believed anything from someone you trusted and found out later it was false?

[cali]

8. More like every few years or every couple of decades, if not

pretty much continuously, But what I find really interesting, and what I addressed, is the nexus between secular apocalypticism and the more traditional Christian version. It's also interesting to go back to the 70s for dystopian predictions of what 2010 would look like- many were of a Mad Max kind of world, naturally enough.

[shadowknows69]

10. Mad max might not be too far down the road.

Soylent green is a pretty potentially relevant work too. Probably more so. MMax is what happens when SGreen world breaks down.

[Odin2005]

19. These bursts of religious insanity seem to occur pretty regularily.

Starting with the "Great Awakening" of the early 1700s bursts of religious fervor have happened in the US every 70 to 90 years. There was the burst of born-again religion in the 1820s and 1830s that swept away the popularity of secular Deism in the US. Then there were the religious movements that sprung up during the 1890s and the first years of the 20th century. Then finally there was the New-Age spirituality and revival of fundamentalist Christianity in the late 60's, 70's, and early 80s. Generally these bursts of religious fervor seem to be triggered when people born in a generation (like the Baby Boomers) born after a major crisis come of age.

[Mojorabbit]

7. I base my feelings

on the future from articles about climate change(almost all state the scientists are surprised things they predicted are happening much faster than the models suggest), environmental articles, erosion of our constitutional rights, and I am keeping up with the news from all over the world re a possible pandemic which the major banks held an exercise on recently(two more suspected deaths in Indonesia this week but no pandemic yet but then I am an emerging infectious disease geek). I will be fine but I worry for the children and what kind of future they will inherit. I think the more educated I get about what is going on in the world the more pessimistic I become.

[Quantess]

11. Is this a phenomenon of modern times,

or have there always been groups of humans saying "the end is near"?

[shadowknows69]

12. Always

and every major religion has its version of the doomsday myth as they do the creation myth.

[mrcheerful]

13. It's as old as religion is.

[cali]

15. sure is. but secular apocalypticism is

a fairly recent phenomenon- and a pretty complex one.

[cali]

14. Virtually every religion and culture

has an end-time myth, just as they have creation myths. Western religions and cultures tend to have more defined and scripted eschatological scenarios than Eastern cultures. The reason generally given for this phenomenon is that Eastern cultures and religions have a cyclical view of history versus the Western linear view.

Secular apocalypticism has been around for a while- think Malthus, and saw growth spurts after both WWI and WWII.

[Odin2005]

20. I've often seen popular forms of Marxism labeled secularized Judeo-Christian eschantologies.

It seems like Judeo-Christian cultural influences are so strongly embedded in Western society that they even influences secular thought.

[cali]

21. Undoubtedly, though Judaism doesn't

have the same kind of elaborate eschatological structure as Christianity. Chilaism- the mythology of a 1,000 years of peace and perfection on earth, has been heavily used by the Nazis and to a lesser degree by Communist regimes.

[wuushew]

16. How about some examples?

What type of doom and gloomers are you referring to?

[Quantess]

17. Here's one to start you off:

http://www.greatdreams.com/end-world.htm

Re: Mayan Calendar 2012

[cali]

18. Here's a concrete example:

Do you remember the prognostications about computers in the year 2000, and how everything from plane crashes to the grid collapsing were going to happen?

[toddaa]

22. That wasn't necessarily secular

The biggest scaremonger of Y2K horror stories was Gary North, who is an unapologetic Christian Reconstructionist. He was the one pushing the most outrageous scenarios in the hope that American government would collapse and his fellow theocrats would take over.

[sufrommich]

24. But many others

believed it without the religious undertones some attached to it.

[cali]

25. There were also plenty of secular

believers and proponents of y2k. Richard Landes, Director of the CMC at BU wrote quite a bit on it.

In any case, nothing I wrote here is new ground in the slightest. Secular apocalyptism is pretty well observed and written about in academic circles. And the reason I know something about it is because I studied it.

[toddaa]

29. Not disagreeing with you, I just think that Y2K was heavily tainted by Gary North

There were people like Ed Yourdon who initially pushed apocalypse, but they largely abandoned the doomsday rhetoric by late 1999 due to all the money and work that was being spent. By that time, most of the secular y2kers were toning down the loopier ideas. Gary North, on the other hand, refused to listen to IT professionals and expressed hope that American civilization would collapse. His web site was the most predominant face of the Y2k apocalypse and was laugh out loud hilarious to those of us who actually worked on the problem. He's now latched onto Peak Oil, recycling much of the same rhetoric he pushed over Y2K. Peak Oil is the latest doomsday scenario that is pushed by people like Michael Ruppert and Matt Savarin.

[Quantess]

35. The webbot project has also somehow picked up on 2012

http://aphroditeastrology.com/2007/05/web-bot-project-a...

I saw a program on the History Channel that mentioned the web bot project, which was designed to predict the stock market, is making doomsday predictions as well.

[sufrommich]

23. Good post,Cali,

Michael Shermer wrote a book called "Why People Believe Weird Things".which explains the phenomenon clearly.All superstition takes religious overtones whether the "true believers" know it or not. One must be willing to emphasize theory over fact and all facts that contradict the theory are suspect.

[cali]

26. Thanks, su

Millenarianism and apocalyptism are fascinating phenomenoms. And of course, believers repudiate that which doesn't fit with their belief system, and tend to vehemently shut others out who don't believe as they do. To a small degree, I do think that some of that has been seen here lately by some of the more adament holders of dystopias.

[shadowknows69]

27. I try not to shut people out

I'm simply waiting for someone to convince me we're not doomed. No one in power has yet. Al Gore gives me hope but I think he could have done more as President. I completely understand why he isn't running. I wouldn't want the job either.

[sufrommich]

32. You do realize that no mortal can

prove to you that "we are not doomed" ,right. On an individual level, we're all doomed!

[sufrommich]

31. I agree.nt

[Pathwalker]

28. But has the end times ever been FORCED onto us before?

I know the end timers have been around since the end of the last century, according to my own Grandmother, but has anyone in the highest seats of power ever tried to force events to fit all the "prophecies" some believe? It's not the believers that bother me, but the ones now in power trying to make it happen. Has that ever happened before?

[cali]

33. an unqualified yes.

The social upheaval due to radical millinarian groups in Europe in the middle ages was considerable. Now granted, they didn't have nuclear bombs at their disposal, but they did their best. Besides, I'd argue that bush is not pushing a millenarian vision, but is acting out of greed and hubris. And though Dominionists and other wingnuts have influence and power, they don't have enough to make it happen. And who's been pushing endless war the hardest? The neocons, and they aren't faith based, by and large.

[Pathwalker]

37. Thank you for answering. You say that Bush isn't pushing

a millenarian vision, but he's used "code words" quite often to try and convince his followers that he is pushing it, so do you think that's just a craven attempt to make them think he's going to bring about Armageddon for their benefit? Not that I'd put it past any of them... quite honestly, I've always thought that's what he's doing, but won't they get really, really pissed when they - the end-timers - realize they've been played? Or is this just a power grab for control of the Middle-East?

[cali]

38. I don't know. I'm pretty tuned in to millenarian language

And bush certainly uses it, but I don't think he holds a candle in that regard to reagan with his "city on the hill" Augustinian crap, and policies about the environment that tied directly to the apocalypse. I'm sure that some of that language is used to placate his religious base. No, they won't freak that Armegeddon didn't arrive under bush; they're more upset that Roe wasn't overturned. And yes, I think this is largely about oil and profits.

[Mojorabbit]

41. Do you think that for most people

their world is where they live? I am thinking of the people in Congo,Sudan, Darfur, Iraq. It must feel like a doomsday scenario for them. I wonder if they have myths in their cultures which for them have come to pass. Does it depend on one's circumstances I guess is what I am asking.

[cali]

42. man, that's a really good question

And I can't do anything but speculate. I suspect that for people living those life and death nightmares, they're so firmly placed in survival mode, that they don't have the luxury of pondering on what if feels like or connects too. You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?

So I guess it does depend on your circumstances. If you're so engaged in day to day survival, that crowds almost everything else out.

[shadowknows69]

43. If the human race survives long enough

imagine the myths and legends that will come out of our time. Usa, God of death, the White Destroyer. Ravaging all he sees.

[cali]

44. I had a really cynical anthropology prof once

who said the best thing that could happen to the human race was some cataclysmic event that sent us back to the stone age to start over with a handful or so of cautionary myths.

[shadowknows69]

45. That's about where I'm at these days

[Speck Tater]

30. The human race is doomed.

Several billion years from now the sun will run low on hydrogen fuel and, switching to other fusion processes, expand to engulf the inner planets, including Earth. All life on the planet will perish.

On a shorter time scale, say millions of years, climate changes, asteroid impacts, and other global disasters have wiped out entire species in the past, and will do so again in the future.

On shorter time scales, says hundreds of years to thousands of years, empires and civilizations come and go, grow and collapse, and the American empire will fall into ruin, like every other empire before.

On shorter time scales, says decades, climate change and fossil fuel shortages will strain the economy. Add to that the normal ups and downs of economies and depression, hyperinflation, and other economic hard times will happen, as they have always happened in the past.

On shorter time scales, say years, hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters will severely damage cities around the world and kill and injure millions of people. It has always been so, and will continue to be so.

On shorter time scales, say months, drunk drivers will devastate families, home foreclosures will put people on the street, and tear families apart.

On a shorter time scale, say days, your dog will poop on your new carpet and you won't be able to get the stain out.

Perhaps the difference between a "Secular Apocalyptist" and a "Pollyanna" is that the former acknowledges that bad things happen and the later denies that fact.

Granted, the people who think that civilization will vanish overnight due to some global catastrophic event on Wall Street, or the overnight melting of Antarctica, are just as delusional as any other doom-and-gloomer, but the natural cycles that have occurred in the past will continue to happen. Carpets will get stains, roofs will get torn off in wind storms, families will be torn apart, cities will be nearly wiped out, governments, empires, and economies will fall into ruin, species will become extinct, including the human species, and planets will be incinerated.

The only real mistake in making such prophecies is to believe that each event will happen suddenly, and will happen tomorrow. The fall of the Roman Empire happened in such slow motion that it went entirely unnoticed by the average Roman subject. So will the fall of civilization be visible only in retrospect dozens of generations later.

[sufrommich]

34. Are you channeling Carl Sagan,by any chance?

Well said.

[cali]

36. Really great, great post.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading it.

[Igel]

39. Thanks for the Wojcik reference.

I noticed that a lot of secular folk I knew back in the '70s were little different from the religious folk I knew. The difference wasn't in psychology, but in the particular details of their speech or, um ... eccentricities.

Both were convinced that everything was horrible, things were collapsing and would produce woe and grief on a massive scale, and they (and pretty much only they) had secret wisdom. Maybe not enough to save them, but certainly enough for them to feel good about their outrage.

Sometimes the revealed wisdom was zero-point energy, perpetual motion, or something about UFOs. Whatever's needed to upgrade Ego 0.1 beta to Ego 1.0.

Often they believed they were being persecuted by powers in high places. Satan or the Bilderbergers. Or there was great wisdom being kept from them.

The oddest were people that were fundie Xians, *but* espoused the same kinds of ideas seen among the secular folk. They were a hoot.

On the other hand, it was always entertaining to listen to somebody go on and on about this conspiracy or that bit of superscientific fact that only a few know, and that they're in danger because Amoco or the military-industrial complex would kill them if they knew it was public knowledge. I'd call their ideas "out there," and they'd respond, "Hey, I'm not crazy like those Xian creeps. Now *they* have weird ideas."

[cali]

40. I've had the same experience

I know more than a few secular apocalyptists, and they can never see the parallels between themselves and the xian fundamentalistas.

[cali]

46. kick