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Page added on February 9, 2013
Rationally Speaking, We Are All Apocalyptic Now
We are all apocalyptic now, or at least we should be, if we are rational.
Because “apocalyptic” is typically associated with religious fanaticism and death cults – things that rational people tend not to take literally or seriously – this claim requires some explanation.
First, a definition: The term is most commonly used in reference to the Book of Revelation, also known as The Apocalypse of John, the final book of the Christian New Testament. The two terms are synonymous in their original meaning – “revelation” from Latin and “apocalypse” from Greek, both mean a lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something that had been hidden.
Second, the formulation “we are all (fill in the blank) now” has long been a way to assert that certain ideas have become the norm: “We are all Keynesians now,” said Milton Friedman in 1965, for instance, or to express solidarity: “We are all New Yorkers now,” said many non-New Yorkers after 9/11.
Rather than claiming divine inspiration, we can come to greater clarity about the desperate state of the ecosphere and its human inhabitants through evidence and reason. It is time for a calm, measured apocalypticism that recognizes that the ecosphere sets norms, which we have ignored for too long, and that we need to develop a new sense of solidarity among humans and with the larger living world.
So, speaking apocalyptically need not leave us stuck in a corner with the folks predicting lakes of fire, rivers of blood or bodies lifted up to the heavens. Instead, it can focus our attention on ecological realities and on the unjust and unsustainable human systems that have brought us to this point.
This “revelation” is simple: We’ve built a world based on the assumption that we will have endless energy to subsidize endless economic expansion, which was supposed to magically produce justice. That world is over, both in reality and in dreams. Either we begin to build a different world, or there will be no world capable of sustaining a large-scale human presence.
If that’s not clear: When we take seriously what physics, chemistry and biology tell us about the health of the living world on which we depend, we all should be thinking apocalyptically. Look at any crucial measure of the ecosphere – groundwater depletion; topsoil loss; chemical contamination; increased toxicity in our own bodies; the number and size of “dead zones” in the oceans, accelerating extinction of species and reduction of biodiversity; and the ultimate game-changer of climate disruption – and ask a simple question: Where we are heading? Scientists these days are talking about tipping points and planetary boundaries, about how human activity is pushing the planet beyond its limits.
If we look honestly at the state of the world, it is difficult not to conclude that we are in end times of sorts – not the end of the physical world, but the end of the First-World way of living and the end of the systems on which that life is based.
I know that invoking the terms “apocalypse” and “end times” triggers many people’s experiences with arrogant religious people who preach about deliverance fantasies. My message is not about a rapture that can be predicted, but about ruptures in the ecological and social fabrics that are underway and accelerating.
No matter how carefully I craft these statements – no matter how often I deny a claim to special gifts of prognostication, no matter now clearly I reject supernatural explanations or solutions – many people refuse to take this analysis seriously. Some people joke about “Mr. Doom and Gloom.” Others suggest that such talk is no different than conspiracy theorists’ ramblings about how international bankers, secret cells of communists, or crypto-fascists are using the United Nations to create a one-world government.
Even the most measured and careful talk of the coming dramatic change in the place of humans on Earth leads to accusations that one is unnecessarily alarmist, probably paranoid and certainly irrelevant in serious discussions about social and ecological issues. In the United States, people expect talk of the future to be upbeat, based on those assumptions of endless expansion and perpetual progress, or at least maintenance of our “way of life.” Even those who realize the danger of such fanciful thinking are hesitant to speak too bluntly, out of fear of seeming crazy.
A calm apocalypticism is not crazy, but rather can help us confront honestly the crises of our time and strategize constructively about possible responses. We can struggle to understand – to the best of our ability, without succumbing to magical thinking – the state of the ecosphere and the impediments to sensible action in our societies.
This struggle to understand led me to write a short polemic, We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out. The book’s message is simple: The big systems that structure our world, especially capitalism and the extractive economy, are incompatible with social justice and ecological sustainability. Those who have opportunities to write and speak out have a responsibility to articulate the radical analysis necessary to understand the problems and begin to identify solutions.
To think apocalyptically is not to give up on ourselves, but only to give up on the arrogant stories – religious and secular – that we modern humans have been telling about ourselves. Our hope for a decent future – indeed, any hope for even the idea of a future – depends on our ability to tell stories not of how humans have ruled the world, but how we can live in the world.
We are all apocalyptic now, whether we like it or not.
10 Comments on "Rationally Speaking, We Are All Apocalyptic Now"
Cloud9 on Sat, 9th Feb 2013 2:17 pm
More of us are recognizing that we are reaching the end of growth. We hear rumblings in the machine. We see the fraying at the edges. We look at the drawn faces of the Greeks and the wasteland of Detroit and we feel ill at ease. Bullets are gone from the shelves. When food follows suit, the dreamers will awake.
BillT on Sat, 9th Feb 2013 2:52 pm
Too many of the American First Worlders never get out of the box closed in between their home, WalMart, Job, and local relatives. The internet is not used to see outside the box, but to hunker down inside and ignore reality as much as possible for as many hours per day as possible. When is American Idol on?
Reality hurts, it’s painful and it means that that First World lifestyle is going away, never to return. It is intruding on all sides of the box and poking holes in it, letting in the truth. It is $4+ gas and smaller paychecks, more friends and neighbors out of a job and losing their homes and savings.
It means that if we continue to be BAU, the world is NOT going to provide what we need to live. Some studies say we are already too late to prevent our extinction. Not in centuries, but in decades. In YOUR lifetime.
Plantagenet on Sat, 9th Feb 2013 7:35 pm
Parts of the USA will become apocalyptic. Parts are going to be just fine.
The future will be just like now, only worse.
Rusty Baker on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 1:31 am
The only foreseeable apocalypse on the horizon is the return of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth. On that glorious day, the Prince of Peace will come to rapture his true believers like me and my fellow church-goers. Fake liberal Christians like Obama and his ilk are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They support satanic gay rights and the hellish pro-choice abortions. That’s reason enough for God Almighty to rain fire and brimstone on our God-forsaken, secular, immoral and perverted nation of modern America.
All of this “global warming”, “peak oil” and so-called “economic collapse” theories are just distractions from the truth. Liberals keep crying wolf with all their nonsensical sky-is-falling doomsday propaganda. What those liberals fail to grasp is that America is now a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah; a land of immorality, political correctness and pure sinful filth. Furthermore, that is the real reason that America is going down the tubes. And now the liberal media is spreading the false idea that fossil-fuels are non-renewable as fact.
This notion is an insult to God. It’s blasphemy in its pure essence. Jesus specifically said in the King James Bible that he will provide if need be. Philippians 4:19–“And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” This means that if the United States needs more oil, God will provide. That is precisely why Fracking is a God-given gift that will make America energy independent by 2020.
Moreover, some of the good, capitalist Orthodox Christian scientists in Russia discovered this irrefutable fact. They discovered–through the scientific method–that oil is actually abiotic in nature. The Russians dug the world’s deepest hole in Siberia and discovered an infinite gusher oil well which constantly replenishes itself. And that’s the reality that these liberal scientists don’t want to confront because of their socialist/Marxist inclinations. As a result, Russia is the world’s second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia.
BillT on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 3:05 am
Rusty, I thought Planet was a bit off the track but you have left the planet. Good luck with living on ‘beliefs’.
All of the Us AND the Western world, including Japan, is moving on down to 3rd world levels one step at a time. No one will be exempt. No one will live a 1st world lifestyle by 2050. No one. Not even you, Planet.
antaris on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 4:47 am
Rusty you have SF Brains
DonM on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 4:51 am
Rusty. Your kidding. Right? That part about abiotic oil is really rich.
ken nohe on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 6:35 am
The world is just fine, thanks a lot. Yes, “developed lifestyles” are on the way out but good riddance. It was just a short fluke of evolution. We will evolve and adapt again. Wildlife is on the way out? Then what, it is already almost completely wiped out in Europe and a large part of the US and few people notice… or care. The weather is changing? Again, then what, people went up and down following the ice for millennial before the recent and short stable period. It is amazing how people keep criticizing the mindless sprawl, big box consumer culture but at the same time want to maintain the conditions which allowed it to prosper in the first place. Let it go; enjoy the twilight!
keith on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 6:51 am
I think rusty is SOS in disguise. He’s so over the top. I think he doesn’t believe a word he says. Watch for a reaction.
Arthur on Sun, 10th Feb 2013 11:17 am
“The only foreseeable apocalypse on the horizon is the return of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth. On that glorious day, the Prince of Peace will come to rapture his true believers like me and my fellow church-goers.”
I have to admit that they sure do not make jews like Jezus anymore. Send him my regards when he returns at JFK airport (El-Al or United Emirates?).
In the mean time my biggest fear is that humanity will be ‘liberated from its sufferings’ by all these jewish invented Messiasses (Los Alamos – Manhattan project, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, Szilard, Fermi, etc, etc) waiting in the silos, located under the planes of Wyoming, to rain down from the heavens… after which evolution can start all over again. The Eternal Adam, so to speak.