Article The New Apocalypticism (secular adoption of the religious doomsaying tradition)

[C C]

Joseph Heller: “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” --Catch-22
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The New Apocalypticism
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the...alypticism

EXCERPTS: In 1983, Michael Barkun, today a professor emeritus at Syracuse University, wrote an incredible essay, presciently identifying the rise of a “New Apocalypticism” in American political discourse. Today I share some excerpts from that 40-year-old essay — Divided Apocalypse: Thinking About The End in Contemporary America — and connect them to today’s public discussions of climate change.

Barkun defined the “New Apocalypticism,” as follows;

The so-called "New Apocalypticism" is undeniably religious, rooted in the Protestant millenarian tradition. Religious apocalypticism is, however, not the only apocalypticism current in American society. A newer, more diffuse, but indisputably influential apocalypticism coexists with it. Secular rather than religious, this second variety grows out of a naturalistic world view, indebted to science and to social criticism rather than to theology. Many of its authors are academics, the works themselves directed at a lay audience of influential persons — government officials, business leaders, and journalists — presumed to have the power to intervene in order to avert planetary catastrophe.

Barkun observed that intellectuals were fulfilling a societal function previously served by religious leaders, even though these intellectuals did not always view science and religion to be compatible:

. . . however uninformed or unsympathetic these secular prophets may be concerning their religious counterparts, they clearly recognize the presence in their own work of religious motifs. Their predictions of "last things" generate the feelings of awe that have always surrounded eschatology, even if in this case the predictions often grow out of computer modelling rather than Biblical proof-texts.

For many, science has come to replace religion in its perceived ability to identify the root cause of our existential crisis and scientists have replaced religious leaders as holding the unique ability to offer guidance on how we must transform in order to stave off catastrophe...

[...] For the secular millenarian, extreme events — floods, hurricanes, fires — are more than mere portents, they are evidence of our sins of the past and provide opportunities for redemption in the future, if only we listen, accept and change:

Where the religious view regards events as signs, the secular position is far more apt to view them as direct causes: the future will occur because of actions taken in the past and the present, but the future may be changed by making different present choices. At one level, this shifts causal efficacy from an external deity to human beings. At another level, by opening the possibility that The End might be averted by timely action, the change introduces a measure of indeterminacy, as opposed to the fundamentalist emphasis upon inevitability. The opportunity for preventive action makes the secular scenarios appear more hopeful, because, in principle, destructive actions by human beings might be prevented — intentional acts might be forestalled by pointing out their likely consequences, while human error might be reduced by more closely monitoring the conduct of those in positions of responsibility. Nonetheless, this approach can only hold out the hope of minimizing risks, which leaves some ineradicable possibility of danger, because evil, ignorant, or inadvertent behavior can never be eliminated.

When we hear oft-quoted climate scientists warning that our calamitous times are the consequence of our misguided past actions and that the route to a different future is transformation — For instance, “urgency and agency” in the sloganeering of popular climate scientist Michael Mann, above. We can understand these dynamics as those of today’s priests of the secular apocalypse, explaining our predicament and offering the hope of salvation... (MORE - missing details)

RELATED:

Apocalypticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypticism

Climate apocalypse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_apocalypse

Global catastrophic risk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk

Doomsday Clock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock

[Magical Realist]

It's hard shaking off the apocalyptic fever once one has devoted some of their life to it. I still have dreams of storm clouds brewing, with the fear of some imminent invasion by superior beings. Endings are always so much more dramatic than continuations. There is a thirst in the collective human psyche for universal calamity. A longing to sweep away all that has been accomplished to start fresh from scratch. Hence the endless marketability of end of the world scenarios in book and film.

[confused2]

It's hard shaking off the apocalyptic fever once one has devoted some of their life to it. I still have dreams of storm clouds brewing, with the fear of some imminent invasion by superior beings. Endings are always so much more dramatic than continuations. There is a thirst in the collective human psyche for universal calamity. A longing to sweep away all that has been accomplished to start fresh from scratch. Hence the endless marketability of end of the world scenarios in book and film.

I have absolutely no trace whatsoever of that gene. Kind of explains that people aren't (necessarily) deluded - just different. Hopefully me being different from you gives you some small part of the pleasure that I get from you being different from me.

[Magical Realist]

Hopefully me being different from you gives you some small part of the pleasure that I get from you being different from me.

Yes..I take great joy in the differences of other people. In actuality, few people probably would be happy if the world ended. At least not those who look like they walked off the set of Road Warrior. It tends to be overromanticized alot I think. People are one step away from becoming wild animals just when the power goes out. lol